Broken Body, Broken Mind
by ThatDumbStoryteller
Summary: War can take its toll on both the body and the mind. If you're lucky, you can find someone with whom you can rebuild with. Modern.
1. The Mission

A/N: this is the first time I've written any sort of fanfiction in a while. I definitely wasn't planning on writing one, and then I caught the HTTYD bug after watching the first season of TV show on Netflix. This took me a couple days to write and a couple more to think about and then not actually do any writing. Meanwhile, I was trying to balance work and the course I am taking (those two things combined usually takes me from 5AM to around 7-8PM). Suffice to say that if the story gains traction then I'll continue it, if not I won't. Not because I'm trying to get as much personal attention as possible, I honestly don't care about internet fame. However, because of my schedule if other people find it interesting/important to them, then I can carve time out of my day to keep it going. If not, I enjoyed writing this and I can appreciate the rest of the story I have very loosely planned out in my head. But there are other, equally enjoyable ways I would also like to spend my free time on. Which is why I unfortunately have to prioritize. Unless someone makes a time freezing device or something. Whatever, enough rambling. Here's the story.

"Wake up, Hiccup!" A loud voice called out, waking Hiccup from his slumber. Someone sharply slapped the side of his precariously balanced helmet, which he had perched on his head to block out the sunlight. As soon as the helmet was freed of its position it dropped to the floor, rattling loudly. Hiccup blinked his eyes in annoyance at both the sudden, loud wakeup, and at the unmerciful sun which shone right into his eyeballs.

"What in the hell was that for?" He said, squinting up at the man who woke him so rudely.

"We got a mission. Sgt Gobber wants us all packed and ready to go in two hours,"

"Fine, I'll get my shit packed… in an hour," Hiccup replied, reaching for his helmet again. The man kicked his leg again.

"Sgt Gobber says do it now." Hiccup let out a stream of epithets.

"Fine, I'll do it now. No need to be such a dick about it, Snot." The short, stocky SAW gunner who woke him stiffened at his recently acquired nickname. A name that he did not like, but nonetheless had 'achieved' during a recent training exercise that happened to coincide with a particularly bad cold. Nearly everyone in the team had to wipe off their gear because of Snot's namesake being out of control. It was as impressive as it was disgusting.

Hendrick "Hiccup" Haddock got up from where he had tried to get a quick nap in, and now that he was fully awake, he took in the full sights, sounds, and smells of 2nd Platoon. Err, Bravo platoon. Berk platoon, as they called it. As one of the scout platoons in Dragon Troop, a reconnaissance troop in the 1st Cavalry Division, Berk platoon had taken upon themselves a Nordic naming convention that ran with the letter 'B'. The commanding officer of Dragon Troop apparently liked Nordic shit, so Dragon Troop became Nordic themed, and someone looked up Nordic locations. Apparently, 'Berk' was the home of an old Viking warrior tribe or some shit. And it was supposedly associated with dragons or something? Hiccup honestly didn't care too greatly about the origin of the name Berk, all he really cared about was that his platoon was the best goddamn platoon in the Troop. I mean, possibly. Probably. They worked together well, and were a close-knit team, and that's what mattered.

His team in Berk Platoon was probably the weirdest group of people he had ever worked with, and that's saying something. Come on, after basic you think you've seen all the weird people in the world, and then you show up to Berk Platoon. Other than the short, strong, sinus-ly challenged Snot, there was Fishlegs, Ruff 'n' Tuff, and Hoff. Fishlegs got his name because of someone dared him to eat the tail of a fish and he said didn't want to eat the fish tail—or at least that's what he was trying to say. The rest of the platoon would remind him of his failure to use the English language properly for the rest of time. Ruff and Tuff were siblings, twins even. Their sibling rivalry and pranks could often grow to absurd levels, leaving Sgt Gobber to label them as the 'roughest and toughest' brother and sister he had ever known. That nickname also stuck. Astrid 'Hoff' Hofferson hadn't really done anything crazy enough to earn her a nickname. She was by far the most aggressive though, she really went hard on the combatives training days. That's probably why the nicknames never stuck. Usually Snot would try to come up with something clever to say and Hoff would wipe the floor with him. So nobody really tried to give her a new nickname, which suited her just fine. Hiccup didn't really mind his nickname, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. He had gotten it day one in Berk Platoon when he reported to his platoon sergeant and he was so nervous he got the hiccups. His platoon sergeant had said something along the lines of "Well, Hiccup, follow Sgt Gobber, you're in his team," and the whole platoon started using it immediately. Speaking of which, Gobber is technically a nickname, although in reality it's the only way the platoon could figure out how to pronounce his name. Sgt Gobber had some kinda crazy-ass polish name with twenty syllables and no vowels, so everyone just called him "Gobber" because the first three letters of his name were 'Gob.' And those people were just the ones in his team, the rest of his platoon was filled with an equally zany cast of characters, straight out of sitcom, it seemed like sometimes. But no matter how insane they seemed, when they went outside the wire they were extremely efficient, didn't waste any unnecessary time. And that's what made Hiccup so proud to be in Berk platoon.

Hiccup paid attention to the platoon leader and platoon sergeant as they briefed Sgt Gobber and the other team leaders. As the Lieutenant went on, Hiccup adjusted his ruck, bringing more of this, less of that. Apparently they got some great intel that a terrorist mid-level leader would be in the area to 'inspect the troops' or some bullshit. So in about 48 hours the whole battalion would be out in force after this guy and his 200+ man terror network. As scouts, they would be going into the nearby mountains, scouting out the routes in and out of the area, because rumor had it, that infantry battalions were known to take up a lot of time and space, and if the whole battalion raid was held up because the roads were unsatisfactory… well heads would roll.

The next few hours were a flurry of things to mundane to keep track of. The usual standard fare before a mission. Ammunition was drawn, water bottles filled, backs were slapped. The usual joviality and bravado of a front line unit about to stare down death for the millionth time, because if they were to pause and truly consider the innumerable ways they could easily die in the next two to three days, they would all become combat ineffective from fear.

Hiccup stood ready with the rest of his squad a few minutes before they were going to leave the relative safety of their forward operating base. He watched as the Blackhawk helicopters slowly descended from the heavens, their taxicab into peril. The steady 'whop-whop-whop-whop' of the rotor blades did little to ease the rock in his stomach. He had been patrolling a billion times already, but this time just felt different. They were going further out than they ever had before, and the consequences of being caught—being attacked by a 200 man militia—felt daunting. He heard Sgt Gobber yell something over the sound of the rotorwash. He couldn't quite make it out, but the unmistakable 'follow me,' hand signal left nothing to the imagination. He lifted his ruck on his back, half crouching half running after Sgt Gobber towards the helicopter, grimacing the whole way as the rotorwash from the helicopters blew wave after wave of sand at him, covering him from head to toe in grime.

He gripped his weapon even tighter as he boarded the chopper, finding an uncomfortable bucket seat between Sgt Gobber and Snot. As soon as the whole chalk boarded, the helicopters flew up about a hundred feet vertically and shot forward at their fastest speed. Hugging the terrain, the trip felt like a mild roller coaster with uncomfortable seats and a really large backpack sitting in your lap. Glancing over the top of his ruck, Hiccup could see everyone had the same approximate look on their face.

A combination of nerves and determination, everyone's face was set in a blank expression, staring at the terrain as it flew past them. The occasional jaw movement or muscle flexing in their neck betrayed their anxiety. No one dared look each other in the eyes, they could not deal with the possibility of letting anyone know that they were afraid of what could happen on this mission. This impromptu scouting mission of an enemy position with hostile army in the vicinity, how could it possibly go wrong? Hiccup tried not to think about it.

The crew chief yelled two words at the top of his lungs, holding up five fingers. Five minutes, got it. Hiccup once again looked out at the terrain, watching as he saw a goat herder tried to maintain control of his terrified animals as the helicopters roared overhead. What if he was part of an early warning system? Were they flying into an ambush? He gripped the handle of his weapon a little harder. The nose of the bird suddenly jerked upwards, slowing the chopper landed roughly on the side of a mountain. His left hand unbuckled his seatbelt and he threw himself out the right side of the helicopter, tossing his rucksack before him. He plopped down into the prone, steadying his weapon on his bag. Fifteen seconds later, the rotorwash increased in intensity to nearly gale-force as dirt and debris flew all around him. And like that, the helicopters were gone.

Hiccup grabbed his rucksack again, hoisting it onto his back. Ah, that old, familiar ache. He dutifully trotted up the front of the formation, assuming his position as point man. Right behind him was Hoff, the navigator. Then came Snot, then Gobber, finally Ruff 'n' Tuff bringing up the rear of the team, and the rest of the platoon behind them. For the next 16 or so hours consisted of the same few noises, smells, and actions. The rucksack squeaked with each passing footfall, every step hit the ground with a dull thud, and every few moments you could hear a weapon tap a plastic buckle on their vests. The smell of sweat and earth permeated the entire area, so much so they could hardly smell anything else. Every few hundred meters they would stop and the platoon leader would take furious notes on his map. That went on all night long until the morning.

Hiccup noticed the sky over the crest of the hills was beginning to fill his night vision goggles with a brilliant greenish light. He paused, popping the monocular up on his helmet, scanning the mountainside with his eyes. As only his right eye was adjusted to the nighttime environment, the left half of his vision was significantly darker than his right side. Still, he thought there was enough light out to see without the use of his NVGs. Hiccup crested the top of the hill-like feature that protruded from the side of the ridgeline, pausing as he saw down the slope. He knelt down on one knee, giving the hand signal that there was a road ahead. This was specifically something they were supposed to scout out, make sure that the roads were actually in the spots that the maps said they were, and that they were driveable. So far, this was the first road Hiccup had seen.

The platoon leader issued quick orders and the platoon moved out silently, Hiccup and Hoff moving several hundred meters uphill to serve as a security 'checkpoint,' sort of. They didn't have enough firepower to stop any sort of sizeable body of enemies, nor did they want to. They wanted to be completely unnoticed. However, if someone were to come down the road, the platoon wanted to at least have a warning so they could scatter into the bushes and hide until they passed.

Hours passed as the platoon thoroughly inspected the road, checking everything from where the depth of the streams that it crossed to the steepest part of the slope, all to make sure that Humvees could drive along the road without soldiers having to get out and push. All the while, Hoff and Hiccup lay down fighting off the ever approaching sleep monster who had been gnawing at the back of their brains since they had first laid down after walking uphill all night. Hiccup settled his Kevlar helmet on his weapon, letting his neck relax for a bit. An elbow began digging into his right shoulder.

"Ow, quit it, I wasn't asleep," he protested in a whisper.

"No, shut up, do you hear that?" Hoff whispered back. Hiccup stopped moving, listening carefully. Vehicles. Engines and the sound of tires on a dirt road, specifically. Hoff made a few quick adjustments to her position, pulling out the hand mic to her radio.

"Berk One, this is Berk Two Romeo, over."

"Go ahead Two Romeo."

"Vehicles heard moving towards our position from the East, over."

"Roger, Two Romeo. How far, over."

"Two… maybe three hundred meters, over."

"Roger, Berk One out."

The two soldiers tried to get even further into the ground, hoping that the convoy would pass them buy unnoticed. About a minute or so later, the first Toyota truck rumbled into view. It was kind of what you would expect from an Afghanistan militia convoy. Beat up old truck, machine gun mounted in the back, lots of dudes with beards in the bed of the truck toting AK-47s. Hiccup and Hoff lay absolutely silent fearful that any movement they made would give up their location. The first truck drove past their position as another one came into view. Hiccup could feel his heart stop as he felt sure that he had accidentally made eye contact with one of the militia soldiers. But the man didn't flinch or make any indication that he had seen Hiccup. Hoff halted her breathing, as if they could hear her over the noise their vehicles made. All in all, they counted four trucks going past them, all equally equipped. A whispered radio call later, and the rest of the platoon knew what was coming their way. The sound of the vehicles grew fainter, and the two breathed a sigh of relief.

There are few sounds in the world that make the 'pucker factor' of a situation increase by a factor of 10. In basic training, it was the command that immediately proceeded lots of pushups. Back home at Fort Hood, it was the sound of the Battalion Sergeant Major chewing someone out for some perceived minor indiscretion. At the FOB, it was most definitely the near weekly mortar fights they got in. Out here, on this mission, at this moment, it was the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire.

"Shit!" Hiccup uttered angrily, punching the ground. He whirled, jumping to his knee, aiming his weapon in the direction of the gunfire. The gunfire rapidly grew in volume and intensity as Snot's SAW made itself known.

Hoff dumped her rucksack and leapt to her feet, sprinting downhill towards the firefight, each step kicking up clouds of dust as each step impacted the ground with unrelenting force. Hiccup stayed hot on her heels, nearly tripping a dozen times over branches and rocks that Hoff knocked over in her warpath. The two skidded to a halt, sizing up the situation in front of them. Each of the vehicles had their gunners raking the opposite side of the road with withering fire as the milita rushed downhill from the vehicles in flanking maneuver. Hoff dropped to a knee, taking aim at gunner of the closest vehicle. Hiccup clamped his against the side of a tree, aiming at the furthest gunner.

"On my mark, three, two, one, fire!"

Hiccup squeezed the trigger, smoothly pulling it past its breaking point. After a couple of nightmares where he tried to shoot and the gun simply refused to fire, the sharp recoil in his shoulder felt glorious. He popped another five or six bullets into the man, glancing at the next target in line. He quickly snapped his weapon over to follow his line of sight. His weapon crackled once again. One of the militia turned towards him, only now hearing gunfire behind him as the machine guns had gone silent. Hiccup and the man looked at each other for a split second, trying to figure out which of the two would make it out alive. The soldier aimed his AK at Hiccup, firing a burst in his direction. Hiccup adjusted his weapon again, squeezing the trigger until the magazine was depleted. The Afghanistani man lay slumped against the side of the vehicle, blood sprayed onto the side of the truck giving it a strange, streaked red and brown appearance. At that point everyone in the world seemed to know where Hiccup and Hoff were. Dirt spouted up all around the two as rounds impacted alarmingly close to where the two were crouched. Wood fragments showered down upon the two as the tree that Hiccup had been crouched behind exploded under a hail of gunfire. Hiccup and Hoff nearly threw themselves off a cliff in an effort to escape the hail of gunfire. The duo dropped ran down the slope as fast as they could, hoping to lose any pursuers. Eventually, the sound of gunfire grew fainter, as the militia pursued the rest of the platoon instead of the two lone scouts. Finally getting a chance to catch their breaths, the two turned to each other, noticing how scared they both were.

Hiccup reached down to his canteens, finally getting some water to his parched lips. He was drenched in sweat and all his muscles ached. He half sat, half laid against a rock hoping to get a moments respite before they moved again.

"Can I get some of that?" Hoff asked. Hiccup drained half of it, then tossed it over.

"Sure, but where are yours?" He said gasping for air after chugging the precious liquid.

"I left it in my ruck back at the security point," Hoff explained before downing the rest of the canteen. Hiccup chuckled.

"Ha ha, rookie mistake."

"Shut the hell up Hiccup," Hoff said with a laugh, half a smile creeping to her lips. It was moments like this when you were scared shitless that even the slightest bit of humor brought great relief. She tilted her head back, resting her helmet against a tree. "So what now?"

It was the question they had both been thinking of, but neither had wanted to ask. What could they do? It was a long walk back to their FOB, and by themselves—especially without the gear in their rucks—they wouldn't survive long. They hadn't heard anything on the radio since they began their trek of controlled falling down a mountain. They could call up their location and hope that someone was listening, but therein lies the rub, they hadn't heard from their platoon in forever. That meant that either a) the enemy had killed their whole platoon and had taken their radios, in which case revealing their position was a death sentence, or b) their platoon's radio transmission were being blocked by the mountain. Option B seemed the most likely, but the possible consequences of Option A were nothing to shake a stick at.

"I mean I guess we could try to call them, but it's risky," Hiccup said. "If they militia guys even have half a brain they could triangulate our position the moment we call for help. Do you still have the map?"

"Of course I do, I wouldn't leave that at the ruck."

"Right, it's only unimportant things like water that you leave behind," he said jokingly. Hoff rolled her eyes. "Well, we could always try to meet back up at Checkpoint 3, I think that's where we were supposed to go if we lost comms." Hoff's eyes lit up.

"You're right!" You could see the hope light up her face as she whipped out the map. "Let's see, it's a good ten-ish kilometers thataway." She pointed parallel to the mountain, generally back towards where they had been dropped off.

"Awesome, let's get going."

The trek back to hopefully safety felt the same as the walk that brought them to this predicament. Step, step, rattle, rattle, smell of hot man, smell of hot woman, step, step, rattle, rattle. The glare of the midday sun bore down upon them unmercifully. Since when did it become almost noon? Hiccup thought it was just a few minutes past sunup, but apparently the battle, the mad dash to avoid getting shot, and their break before setting out again had taken a lot longer than he thought it did. Time sure flies when you fear for your life.

The sun continued to batter the two throughout the day, driving their shadows further and further upslope until sunset lit the sky in a brilliant explosion of crimson hues. Hoff probably would have enjoyed the sunset if it weren't another reminder that she wasn't in the relative safety of her FOB. Hell, even being with her platoon right now would be far better than her current predicament.

Hoff slung her weapon on her back, pulling out the map to make sure they were going the right way. Just about a kilometer more to go. Glancing back up, she almost ran smack dab into the middle of Hiccup's back. Hiccup had stopped moving, holding his left hand up in a 'stop' signal. His head and eyes were fixed upslope. Hoff followed his gaze. No more than 100 meters up the slope there was a patrol of enemies. A flurry of questions burned through Hoff's mind. Were they stalking them? Did they know where she and Hiccup were? How many of them were there? Oh god, was she gonna die on this shitty mountainside?

Hiccup slowly began crouching down and moving closer to some high shrubbery that grew nearby them. She followed him quietly, slowly easing every footfall onto the ground so that it made no noise. The two sat there huddled, listening to the footfalls as they grew closer and louder. Soon, they were almost on top of the two. Hiccup sat there silently, dripping in sweat as the footsteps started coming around the shrubs that they were sitting behind. A man emerged from view, some low-level militia guy with an AK-47. He was probably the son of a farmer, given maybe $5-$10 to come and shoot at Americans. His AK hung loosely at his side, not even close to being ready for a fight. Hiccup guessed by his lack of significant facial hair that the kid was no more than 20 years old, but here he was on the mountainside. The man stopped just a few feet away from the pair, facing away from them.

Hiccup sat perfectly, silently, still. He couldn't hear any other footfalls nearby. Apparently this one man had wandered away from the rest of the patrol in order to… use the bathroom. Hiccup and Hoff glanced at each other awkwardly, unsure what to do next. Hoff quietly raised her weapon, just in case it needed to be used. The man finished his business, and half turned towards them. The loudest ever heard by man are those that we want to be silent. The unnatural metallic 'click' when Hoff switched her weapon from safe to semi was undoubtedly heard around the world. The man whirled, looking directly at the two. For a second, the two paused, neither wanting to make a move. Seconds passed in a stalemate of fear as both parties locked eyes. With a quick motion, the farmer's son brought his AK up. Hoff's weapon erupted in flame, sending a single bullet through the man's cheek and out the back of his head.

"Shit!" Hiccup yelled, jumping up. He dumped half of a magazine at the nearby patrol, sending them running for cover. "Run!" Hoff took off in a sprint for some nearby rocks.

"Set!" She hollered back, opening fire on the scattered militia. Hiccup fired one last shot before turning and running to where Hoff was.

"Got you covered!"

"Moving!" Hoff sprinted another ten meters away towards some more cover.

"Set!"

"Moving!" Hiccup jumped up, sprinting towards Hoff as amount of gunfire they were receiving increased dramatically. Ten meters away. Seven meters. Five meters. Hiccup's legs churned as fast as possible as rock debris and dirt showered pelted him. Bullets flew all around him as he sprinted for safety. A spurt of red mist erupted from directly below his knee and he careened forward into the ground, just a meter away from safety.

"Shit!" He crawled the last meter forward, hoping that he wouldn't get hit again. "Damnit!" He shouted again through his grimace. He glanced down at his leg. Where bone should have been, mere flesh and powder remained. A bullet had shattered his shin just below the knee, and his blood was pouring out onto the ground. He swore again. Hoff glanced down at Hiccup, doing a double take.

"Oh damn, Hiccup, I thought I told you not to get shot!" She leaned over him, grabbing a tourniquet out of Hiccup's vest.

"Honestly, I don't recall that," he said, squeezing off a few more shots as he rolled over to get a better angle.

"Hold still, Hiccup, or you'll bleed to death!" Hoff proclaimed after a few seconds struggling to get the tourniquet on.

"Why prolong the inevitable, Hoff? I'm not making it off this damn mountain, we both know that."

"Don't talk like that Hiccup, we'll both be home safe and sound at the FOB tonight, I'll make sure of that," she said grunting as she cranked down the tourniquet over his thigh. "Hold on," she said, spinning him over. A few quick strokes of her finger and she inscribed the current time on his forehead with the blood left on her hands. Hiccup reached up, grabbing her vest and pulling her down.

"Hoff, I've got about three and a half mags left. I'll give you cover fire. You run, you can make it away if I hold them off." Hoff locked eyes with him for a few seconds. You could see the determination set in his eyes. For a moment she considered his offer. But a second later she shook realized what a goddamn fool she was. She slapped his hand away from her vest.

"Hiccup, don't be an idiot, I'm not going to leave you behind."

"I'm serious Hoff, don't be a hero, I can't move fast with my remaining leg, but you could make it far away quickly."

"Hiccup, either we both get out or we both die here, but I'm not leaving you to become a prisoner of war, no way in hell." She raised her weapon, firing a few more rounds at an approaching militia fighter.

A man jumped up from the bushes just a few meters away. Hiccup spun, bringing the weapon to bear, squeezing the trigger as soon as he was aimed in the general direction of his foe. Hiccup's M4 and the enemy's AK both erupted in a series of vicious fireballs, like a pair of dragons battling it out in an epic duel of wrath and flame. The insurgent took three rounds to the chest, falling backwards as his AK let loose one final burst. A round smacked into Hiccup's ballistic vest, knocking the wind out of him. Hiccup tried to yell the word 'reloading' but his words were carried away in the winds of a sudden, downwards hurricane that materialized out of nowhere. A pair of Apaches flew overhead at their maximum speed.

"Any station this net this is Foehammer Six, over." Hoff's radio buzzed to life with the voice of a helicopter pilot, the 'whop whop' of the helicopter blades heard clearly behind his voice even through the radio transmission.

"Foehammer Six, Berk Two Romeo, go ahead, over!" Hoff shouted elatedly into the microphone.

"Berk Two Romeo, we've been searching for you all day, break. Do you have a current grid location, over." Hoff whipped out her map as Hiccup fired rapidly towards another team of insurgents. Hoff quickly spit out their location over the radio.

"Last mag!" Hiccup shouted.

"Roger Berk Two Romeo, we'll be back overhead your position in two mikes, over."

"Tell him we may not have two minutes," Hiccup shouted at Hoff. Hoff raised the mic back to her mouth. Hiccup heard a sickening thunk and felt a heavy weight land on him and his leg. He yelled in pain as the weight tore at his ankle even further. He tried to twist to get the weight off of him, each movement shearing his leg off even further as the muscle was trapped between the ground and the weight of Hoff on top of him. He finally spun around, and pushed her back, noticing a hole in the side of her helmet. Blood poured down the left side of her face, her eyes rolled back in her head.

Hiccup thrust his hand up her helmet, feeling for the wound. There was a lengthy gash in the side of her head and an exit out the back of the helmet. Feeling around the back of her helmet, he felt slightly assured. The bullet had entered the helmet, skimmed the side of her head and went out the back of her helmet. It knocked her out, but she wasn't dead… yet. Hiccup turned back towards the enemy, pulling the trigger five more times. Only two bullets came out.

"Foehammer Six, this is Two Hotel, over."

"Two Hotel, Foehammer Six."

"Foehammer, you better hurry up, Two Romeo is down, shot in the head, over."

"Roger Two Hotel, can you positively identify your location so we don't shoot you, over."

"Foehammer Six, shoot anything that has more than two people around! We're down the slope from an enemy force, so just shoot the damn enemy!" Hiccup tossed the mic down, grabbing a mag from Hoff's vest. He picked his shots very carefully, shooting at anyone he was sure he could hit.

He reached for another magazine from Hoff's vest, not noticing that a fighter snuck up on him. He locked the bolt forward on the new mag, spinning to aim at the patrol. Two burly hands reached out and grabbed the weapon, trying to yank it free of Hiccup's hands. Hiccup barely managed to keep his hands on it, starting to pull back on the weapon. He pulled himself to his feet, striving to gain the slightest bit of advantage over his enemy. He quickly realized that it was easier to fight standing when you had two usable legs, he collapsed to a knee, hollering in pain. The fighter noticed this, glancing at Hiccup's leg that was skewed out at an unnatural angle. He stomped his foot down on Hiccup's leg fragments, twisting and pulling his foot away.

Hiccup yelled in agony, every muscle in his body contracting in pain. There was a slight bit of relief as the shin and foot sheared off of his body, as at least he was no longer feeling muscle tearing and twisting.

Hiccup grabbed the M4 a bit tighter, shoving forward and over towards the left, pushing off of his good, right leg. He felt immense satisfaction as he heard the combination of the fighter grunting in pain and his flesh searing as Hiccup thrust the barrel of the weapon into the neck of the fighter. The fighter pushed the weapon a bit, trying to get it off of his neck. Hiccup grinned internally. He pulled on the weapon mightily, breaking free of the grip of the fighter. He landed roughly on his back, squeezing off rounds into the chest of the fighter. The man toppled forward, clutching at his chest in surprise. Hiccup crawled back into cover. Surveying the fight scene he saw blood… a lot of blood. And a tourniquet in the middle of the scuffle. He glanced down at his leg. It must have come off. He tried to sit up, feeling immediately dizzy. Maybe if he just rested here for a second he'd feel better. A few seconds later he could barely feel the impact of the explosive death the Apaches were dealing on his behalf.

Hoff struggled to open her eyes. What the hell had happened? How long had she been out? Her vision was a jumbled, confused blur. In fact, the world was most definitely spinning. Oh shit, she could definitely see some people running towards her, carrying weapons. Goddamn if the world would only hold still for a split second she could function at least partially. Where the hell was her weapon? Where? She frantically swung her arms about, feeling sweet relief as her left hand closed on the buttstock of an M4. She swung around, ready to pull the trigger. A boot appeared out of the side of her vision kicking the weapon away. She threw herself after it, clawing in the dirt desperately. A knee dropped on her back, pinning her to the ground.

"It's alright, we got you. Get an IV in that one, we gotta get them out of here, ASAP!"


	2. Waking Up

A/N: Well, this chapter is a bit shorter than I was planning. Like, a lot shorter. I had planned on ten bullet points for this chapter, and I got through five of them while writing. So, what was going to be the second half of this chapter will become chapter three. So not sure how long Ch 3 will be, but it probably won't be the planned 5k word chapters like I was originally planning (this was supposed to be 5k, but it ended up only being 3k). The reason for the shortness of this chapter is my crazy hectic schedule. If you didn't see my previous author's note (which I'll probably delete) then here's the summary: I'm very busy. Until the end of this week, and then my schedule clears up a bunch. Expect more updates after this week. Oh, one final note. These next two (or three) chapters will be pretty heavy hitting in dealing with people dealing with death and PTSD. However, there will be a happy ending eventually, but these next two or three chapters will be pretty brutal. This story will never be a super fluffy 'Hiccup and Astrid danced in a field of flowers then made out until the stars grew tired of being outshined by the pure love of the couple' but will definitely get a happier tone—in a bit. Oh yeah, storytime. Here you go.

The perfection of the beautiful, sunlight day was marred by only by a fluffy clouds dotting the otherwise spotlessly blue sky that hovered over rolling green hills and rocky cliffs. Such days were amongst those recorded by legendary painters whose strokes could only hardly do justice impact that the natural beauty had on the lucky few who got to such a sight. The breathtaking scenery made it hard to even speak in the presence of such indescribable beauty. However, not all people felt that such picturesque scenery was best observed calmly, quietly, and serenely.

"Yahoo!" Hiccup hollered at the top of his lungs as his best friend dove for the sea below, the wind whistling in his ears. He loved this part of the day more than any other, the part of the day he was absolutely free. The speed at which they dropped seaward whipped his hair into a frenzy, each strand straining to stay attached as Hiccup ripped through atop his all-time aforementioned best friend, Toothless the Dragon. Toothless looked over his shoulder at Hiccup, giving him a big, lopsided grin before rolling over mid-air, stretching out his like a parachute. His wings abruptly caught the air as they unfurled, launched him and his human passenger upwards in a lazy arc.

"Oh-ho bud! That was some great flying you were doing back there! Excellent control." Toothless glanced over his shoulder, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Toothless rumbled something in dragonish that sounded like a humble acceptance of praise. Hiccup spun around in the dragon saddle, laying down on his friend's back. He stared skyward, totally relaxed as a single puffy cloud slowly drifted through his vision. "Isn't this the life, bud?"

He could feel Toothless' vocalizations rumble through the leather seat that he was laying on.

"Oh really, what could possibly be better?"

Toothless chortled for another few seconds.

"How can you be hungry, you just ate. And it was a big meal, too."

Toothless suddenly rolled sharply, barking loudly.

"Woah! Ok, fine, you're hungry. We'll stop at the first school of fish we see."

"You two having fun there?" Hoff called out. Hiccup twisted in his seat, searching for the owner of that voice. Hoff drifted down from above, flying a dragon of her own. Her dragon, a Nadder, was covered head to toe in spikes and used them both offensively and defensively. Unlike the monochrome Toothless, Stormfly's scales boasted a brilliant array of colors, ranging from glowing yellows to rusty red and finally to Hiccup's favorite, the vibrant cobalt blues that matched Hoff's eyes. But Odin knows he would never tell her that and live. She'd either kill him or he'd die of embarrassment, and he didn't want to find out which would happen.

"Hoff!" Hiccup's grin lit up his face. "You should have been there; I think we broke some kinda speed record that time! Didn't we bud?" If his excited tone didn't convey his tone clearly enough, his expressive, large hand motions left nothing to the imagination. Hoff snickered at his energetic movements. It was kinda funny when he lived precisely up to the impersonations everyone had for him.

"Well maybe next time you should invite us," she said with a bit of a challenge to her tone.

"Uh, sure. If you want to watch. There's no way you two can much us for speed." Toothless warbled his agreement.

"Hiccup Haddock!" she declared in a faux mocking tone, placing one hand over her chest like she had been horribly offended. "Are you saying that we couldn't beat you in a race? The likes of us? The best dragon team on Berk?" Stormfly snapped something at Toothless in Dragonish, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

"I'm saying that us—the best team on Berk—can beat you—the second best team on Berk—in any competition." Damn, she had tried to trip him up into admitting he wasn't the best team on Berk. He was quick-witted, she would give him that.

"Well if that's the case, then I guess you'll just have to beat us back to Berk, then." Hoff's smile changed to a devilish grin, and she whirled Stormfly around without another word. Hiccup smiled, egging on his closest friend. "Let's show them what speed truly is, Toothless." Toothless rumbled in agreement, shooting forward like a bolt of black lightning. After a few seconds of rapidly gaining altitude, the duo broke through the cloud bank, and began their screaming descent. The wind howling in his ears, he straightened up and turned to wave goodbye as they passed Hoff and Stormfly. He had been keeping his head down close behind Toothless' ears, and as he straightened the burst of wind catching his body threw him off Toothless' back.

Hiccup tried to yell for Toothless but the wind ripped away his words before he could even say them. No matter how he tried, he couldn't even scream in terror as he plummeted to the ground. Toothless yelped something loudly, banking hard to catch up to his friend. Hiccup saw the ground rushing closer and closer as he spun out of control. He could hear his dragon shouting something at him in Dragonish, which was no use to him now. The round raced up, crashing into his left leg first.

"Yaargh!" Hiccup shot up in bed, his left leg still throbbing in pain from the "impact" in his dream. Oh God everything hurt. His head throbbed with a dull banging like smith was using the inside of his head as an anvil. He slowly, deliberately blinked fully two or three times, trying to get his eyes to focus on something… anything. Meh, eyesight was overrated anyway. He'd probably be able to focus again once his head wasn't threatening to explode at any second. He used his left hand to inspect the right side of his body. Aches and pains were everywhere, so he started at his shoulder and worked his way down. Yup, there was a lot of pain in those muscles. Maybe Doc had a ton of extra ibuprofen. He'd clean that medic out of all the anti-inflammatories he had because damn he was hurting right now.

Hiccup then checked his left side with his right hand. It was pretty much the same as the right, lots of aches, some gauze where he had probably gotten a cut, but otherwise it was just about—wait what the hell is that? Hiccup's right hand caught against the IV line running into his left arm. An IV? Why had Doc put an IV in him?

Wait, where was he? He suddenly noticed that nothing felt… right. The bedding was way too clean to be at his forward operating base. And he smelled… nothing. Nobody burning feces, no smell of sweat, no smell of desert, or even the stench of body odor. Hiccup sniffed himself, too. Even he didn't smell like he hadn't showered in well over a month. Did someone wash him? He didn't remember having time to take a shower in the last few days.

He used his right arm to rub his eyes. He popped them open, and the world seemed a bit clearer. Hiccup decided to repeat the process, see if he kept seeing better each time. Apparently, it did. Kind of at least. He could start to see detail, and read at an ok distance. It wasn't 20/20, but it was better than everything being one giant, mushed together mess.

His newly focusing eyes rested on the room itself. It looked like… a hospital. Sterile, fairly uninteresting save the greenish computer that stood at his left beeping rhythmically at 65 beats per second. He glanced down at the blankets, thinking about how much he would have loved to have these at his FOB. But seriously, where the hell was he? Why was he here? How did he get here?

He slowly sat up in the bed, inching upward painfully. He had to get up and find whoever was in charge so he could get back to his platoon, get back in the fight. He swept the covers back and swung his legs over the side. Where did his left leg go?

He remembered. All the memories came flooding back to his brain, each one racking his brain as it impacted his skull in an unending torrent of nightmares.

He remembered hearing the crack of the weapon, the sudden sharp pain as his leg was shot out from under him. He remembered Hoff's terrified look. He remembered his own terrified thoughts. He remembered Hoff getting shot in the head. He remembered the Apache, the hand to hand combat, and more of the pain. Oh God, he remembered it all.

A few nurses burst into the room ready to hit him with shock paddles as the computer system alerted them that Hiccup's heartrate was at 180 beats per second and climbing.

"Specialist Haddock, what are you doing?"

"I have to go, I have to see my platoon. I have to see Hoff." He said, wrestling with the blankets, ensuring he was free of their entangling grasp.

"Specialist, get back in bed!"

"No! I have to go see if they're ok!" Hiccup jumped to his feet only to come crashing to the ground at the foot of the bed. Hiccup cursed himself for immediately forgetting his lack of a foot. He tried to stand up, propping himself up against nearby furniture. The nurses had different ideas, and tried to wrestle him back to the bed. Hiccup frantically tried to escape their vicelike grasp, squirming his way out of their grips as best he could. He had to check on his friends, his family. He just had to.

"Specialist, please calm down!"

"No, I have to see them! I have to make sure they're ok!" Hiccup put every last ounce of energy into one last push to try to get free. He came crashing down after taking an obviously failed step with his left leg. Hiccup squirmed mightily, trying to free himself from their hands as they pinned him to the ground. Hiccup yelped as he felt as sharp pain in his ass. Oh man, the roomed seemed so… spinny.

"How much sedative did you give him?" One of the bendy nurses asked.

"Enough, it will keep him down for two or three hours," he heard as the world faded to black.

Four hours later, Hiccup cracked open his eyes, the light from the setting sun appearing brilliantly through the cracks in the shades to his left, perfectly aligned to ensure that the minimal light that peeked through would land perfectly on his eyes. This time, however, it seemed that people were prepared for him to wake up. Whereas before the room had been void of life, it was now occupied by others, seemingly waiting for him to wake up again. Two women stood on his right talking in hushed tones. They stood between him and a wall that was only a third solid, the other two thirds were equal parts window and door. Through the window he could make out a solid mass of people, most adorned with various emblems of news organizations. Hiccup frowned. The hell was the media doing here? He tried sitting up in his bed, but the rustling of the blankets alerted the staff of his attempt.

"Woah there, relax. Lay down," the older woman said, hands outstretched to press him back down to the bed with both a calm demeanor but also with one that told him that he had no choice. He let himself back down onto the relatively uncomfortable hospital bed.

"How's Hoff doing?"

"We can talk about Specialist Hofferson later, but first we need to make sure you're ok." The doctor said using the same dual tone that she had used earlier. Hiccup was a little more persistent on this point though, at least in comparison to sitting up.

"Is she ok?"

"We can talk about it later, Specialist Haddock, right now I'm concerned about your well-being."

"But it's important," he said with a hint of exasperation. "Last I saw, she was bleeding from her head. Please," he said, changing his tone from demanding to pleading. The doctor stared at him for a few seconds, thinking about just dismissing his request until she was sure he was going to be ok, but at the last second the resolve in her eyes faded briefly. Perhaps it was that she saw a bit of her own son in his eyes, or maybe she just saw how much his squadmates mattered to him.

"Fine, but this is the only question until I'm done ensuring that you're only mending externally. Deal?" Hiccup nodded briefly, fervently. "Specialist Hofferson is fine. The wounds she sustained were much less severe than yours. A concussion, some bleeding, that's it. If all goes well she'll be out of here well before you will." Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief, settling back onto the bed, as he had unknowingly tensed all his muscles, pulling himself upwards slightly. He rose up incrementally again, another question burning in his mind.

"What about the rest of the platoon?" The doctor froze for a second, looking him dead in the eyes. She paused for a bit, before speaking slowly, as if each word had to be looked up from massive filing system and delivered to the vocal chords one at a time just to make sure that only the correct words were used.

"I said only the one question. We," she said, gesturing to her and the accompanying nurse, "have work to do."

Hiccup lost track of how many questions they tossed his way, how many times he replied that he was in pain. A lot of pain. Pain pretty much everywhere. Yes, there too. Ow, yes! What part of 'all-consuming pain' didn't they understand? Ok, wow, yeah that didn't hurt. Congratulations, 1/20 tests were relatively painless. Call the Guinness Book of World Records, golly that sure was a feat to celebrate.

While they poked, prodded, and collected various samples from him, Hiccup entertained himself with… counting tiles. Ah yes, what thrilling fun that was. He had plenty of experience being bored in the Army, usually followed seconds later by him finding something destructive to occupy his time. However, sometimes that wasn't an option. Sometimes he had to just stand at parade rest and count hairs on the back of the head of the guy in front of him. Both that and this were equally thrilling, so he relied on his magnificent counting skills to keep his brain partially occupied while the trained medical professionals did their thing. He assumed what they were doing was important, but for all he knew they could have been taking bets on what exactly he would let them do to him before he questioned it. Finally they left though, giving him a moment of privacy. Oh wait, nope. He wouldn't get that either. As they left him alone, an officer stepped through the door in full blues of the Army Service Uniform, pressed neatly with all the awards in their correct place. A silver cross was adorned his collars, the mark of a chaplain.

"Sir!" he said, trying to sit up.

"Relax, Specialist Haddock, please don't try to get up for me," Hiccup relaxed back into his semi-reclined bed. "May I call you simply Haddock?" Hiccup shrugged.

"Sure, sir, if you want." The chaplain chuckled at his candidness.

"Anyways, Haddock, I just wanted to let you know I'm always available for you."

"Sir?"

"To talk. You've been through a lot in the last three days. And if you have any questions about anything, I want you to know you can always talk to me, and I'll always be able to listen to whatever you need to say." Hiccup sat up straighter.

"Three days? I've been out for three days?" The chaplain sucked in some breath in surprise, and with a bit of trepidation.

"Yes," he said slowly, almost as slowly as the doctor had. "They didn't tell you that?"

"Oh," he said. You could see the cogs turning in his head as he processed the information. You could almost see him bracing him for the inevitable.

"Sir, what are those news guys out there for?" Hiccup said, gesturing towards the window. The chaplain followed his hand. The chaplain swallowed, again speaking slowly and clearly.

"They're here for you."

"Me?" Hiccup said incredulously. "Why would they care about me?"

"Well, you've been national headlines. You and Specialist Hofferson, that is."

"We have? Why?"

"Well, you see," The chaplain began, looking at him but not daring to make eye contact. "You and Specialist Hofferson made the news because you two were, you were," the chaplain stuttered, before changing his speech patterns into a variation of a well-rehearsed speech that few unlucky parents heard. "I regret to inform you that Specialist Hofferson were the only…"

The chaplain kept talking, but the words all jumbled together into a fading background mumble as Hiccup stared off into the wall behind him. People came went in a blur like he was viewing life through a time-lapse shot of his own hospital room. Doctors tried to talk to him but he just stared silently, his eyes refusing to focus and his lips refusing to work. His mind felt like it was in a perpetual fog, like a ship trying to navigate by the starlight on an overcast day through a sea of gelatin. He couldn't think straight, and yet he saw the faces of all his friends and their immediate family clear as day, spinning through his mind million times every second. Gobber, Snot, Ruff, Tuff, and Fishlegs were particularly vivid. Their faces burned in his mind's eye with such a painful intensity that he forgot about the rest of his body.

His hands clasped over his eyes, forcing them to see something new for a change. Nothingness was technically different from staring at the wall.

Why.


	3. Breaking

A/N: This chapter took longer to write than I wanted. I had planned on finishing it this weekend, but it just didn't happen. Mostly because of the super bowl. Also, I spent two days writing and editing (a day for each) a big section of this that I ended up deleting, because I felt it didn't do anything for the story. And if it doesn't help the story, why include it? So that also delayed it. Oh, there'll be a second A/N at the end of this chapter, because talking about the end of this chapter at the beginning of this chapter just doesn't feel right. You'll see why.

Hiccup hobbled through the lunch line on crutches. The doctors and nurses were not happy about his insistence on standing to go through line, let alone going through the lunch line at all. They would have much preferred that he stay in stay closely monitored in bed. However, two more days had passed and he had been very stable. Despite the severe blood loss, his wounds had been relatively minor. He had lots of bleeding, but few complications. The extent of his injuries were limited to a lot of chest bruising from a round he had taken to his plates at some point during the fighting—though for the life of him he couldn't place when exactly he had been hit there—the obvious limb loss, and scattered shrapnel wounds up his left side that were all in his arm and shoulder. That injury he similarly couldn't recall actually happening, but he guessed it was from the danger close fire from the Apaches that had also saved his life. All in all, he was pretty lucky. No super crazy injuries like 'RPG embedded in chest cavity' that he had seen on the news. And since all his bleeding had stopped before he had even woke with each passing hour he grew more restless. So finally, they let him go through the lunch line, standing. Sure, he was still on crutches and a nurse stood at his elbow the whole time to ensure he didn't both collapse from exhaustion and to hold his tray, but at least he was back up on his feet. And to be honest, it was nice being… sort of normal for a bit. He had had a run of distinctly not normal circumstances over the last five days, and with his platoon's military funeral service just two days away, he craved anything that felt… normal.

While the sterilization of the hospital's Dining Facility—commonly abbreviated as DFAC amongst soldiers—was still a major deviation from the normal pseudo-cleanliness of his DFAC downrange, it was still nice to be eating meals amongst other soldiers. As Hiccup stood in line, crutching his way along diligently, he couldn't help to marvel at the spotlessness of the tables that he would soon be eating on. He chuckled inwardly as he saw someone spraying a disinfectant on the table, wiping it down. At the DFAC he was used to, it was almost expected that everything you ate on was covered in some kind of dust; in fact, most of the food had some was covered in sand as well. His old DFAC stretched the limits of the terms 'cleanliness' and even 'DFAC,' now that he thought about it. However, at some point you look past what a cafeteria should be and just realize that it's better than the alternative—the prepackaged rations in brown packaging aptly titled 'Meals Ready to Eat.' However, nobody he knew actually called MREs by their actual name, they referred to them with the acronym or created other, more creative names to describe them.

In the same glance that he appreciated the standard maintained by the DFAC, there was a significantly different atmosphere prevalent in the room. At his old DFAC, everyone knew everyone. Friends talked and laughed about various parts of previous missions, and in general there was just a lot of joviality amongst brothers in arms. The DFAC was a place of refuge where soldiers could relax, eat, and hang out with their friends away from the gritty reality that there were people outside their walls that wanted nothing more than to kill their entire unit; as such despite poor food and hygiene, Hiccup couldn't recall a time in the DFAC he hadn't had fun. This DFAC… wasn't that. It wasn't fun, it wasn't jovial, and it didn't feel like brothers in arms bonding over war stories. It had a cold, detached feel to it. People ate together, but there wasn't the same slap-each-other-on-the-back storytelling. The tales told were more of the "let me tell you how my best friend died" variety. Maybe it was the loneliness, the fact that something horrible had happened to them here and that they were forced away from their pals, that all they could do to help was drive on from day to day and hope that a friend didn't show up in the bed next to them… or worse. Regardless, the whole room felt like there was a drill sergeant in the corner who had decided that a certain level of enthusiasm was unacceptable and decided not to tell anyone what that exact level was, and everyone was too afraid of him to actually test him in order to find out what the precise amount of enthusiasm that would set him off was.

"What do you want to eat?" the server said, hardly attempting to conceal his annoyance at Hiccup as he looked away from the serving line. At least some things hadn't changed. He conveyed what precisely he wanted from the few available choices, the server responding wordlessly by slapping the selections on a plate with an unappetizing splat. Hiccup grimaced a 'thanks' and a subtle nod towards the server and turned to the nurse that stood at his elbow, who grabbed the plate on his behalf.

The two sat down a few tables away from the end, easing down into hard seats. Hiccup looked at the nurse who sat across from him, sliding the tray in front of him while setting her own food down cattycorner to his. He dug into the food with a hurried manner that he had cultivated throughout the last six months of deployment. He paused after about six seconds and half of his meal, glancing up at the nurse who looked singularly uninterested in what was happening. It wasn't that she didn't care about his health, but this was just extremely routine for her.

"So," he began, forcing himself to swallow with an audible 'gulp' before continuing his sentence, "is it always like this in here?" he said, gesturing with his fork at everyone else.

"Always busy?" She replied questioningly, glancing around the room. Of course it wasn't always lunchtime, that wouldn't make any sense. He had to have been asking if there were always this many people here.

"No, is it always..." his voice trailed as he spoke, his eyes glanced around the room as if the right word were just a few tables away, just waiting to be seen. He finally leaned forward slightly so the drill sergeant in the corner wouldn't hear him conspiring to find out what limit was. "Is it always this dead?" His hushed tone evident that he didn't want others to hear him speak the unspoken word in the same place that survivors dwelled. The nurse either didn't pick up on his cues or didn't care after years working here jaded her to an extent she hadn't realized.

"What do you mean by dead?" Hiccup winced internally, but either nobody was paying attention to their conversation or nobody cared what he said.

"There's just no energy here. I dunno, maybe I'm just used to eating with my unit, but everyone is so glum. I'm keep expecting someone to yell at someone else over a card game, or a spontaneous argument to erupt over something someone said, but there's none of that," he paused, searching the ceiling for the appropriate word or phrase. "There's no camaraderie," he finally said. The nurse looked around, scrutinizing the cafeteria with a new purpose.

"Looks normal to me," she finally replied. Hiccup replied with a quiet grunt, before glancing down at his food and finishing off the remainder. He glanced up from food, only modestly satiated, glancing around the room, just people watching to keep himself occupied while his companion finished her meal.

If he still had food in his mouth, it would have perilously close to falling out as his chin dropped to the floor.

He couldn't see her face, but the gait looked an awful lot like Hoff. The girl shuffled along in the lunch line, bandages around her head obscuring her face. But damnit, it sure looked like Hoff. After spending so much time in the field with Hoff and the others, he could recognize their individual gaits anywhere, night or day. The girl moved another few steps forward in line, and damnit it looked a lot like Hoff's, but not quite. Hoff strode with such a supreme confidence, like a lioness on a hunt. That person's gait had similar movements, similar quirks, but just felt different. It was like the same lioness who had been hunting earlier had been scolded mightily and was slinking away. It looked the same but different, Hiccup couldn't quite explain it in words, it just made sense in his head. Damnit girl, turn your head this way so he can see her face. She finally reached the end of the line, spinning to walk down the row of tables that Hiccup sat at. It was her! As she walked past their table, Hiccup fairly jumped to his foot in excitement.

"Hoff! How are you doing? Are ok?" Hiccup spat out about thirty more rapid-fire questions before ending it with a 'I'm so glad to see you.' Hoff just stood still, eyes glazed over in an almost daze as he bombarded her with the barrage of questions. He had expected her to respond similarly but she just... stood there as if it were too much for her to take in at once. She glanced down at his amputated limb and back it him with a strange expression. Hiccup couldn't quite place it; it wasn't the joyous reunion he had expected. Her eyes held a tint of… horror? Fear? Contempt? He couldn't quite nail it down. Her mouth began to move, though it took half a second for words to actually come out.

"Hey, Hiccup. How are you doing?" In comparison to Hiccup's salvo of questions, Hoff's response felt cold. Sure, it was said at a normal tone at a normal pace but the change in energy from Hiccup's exuberance to Hoff's cold standoffish response was noticeable. Hiccup paused for a second, mentally readjusting his expectations for the conversation. You could hear the shrill grating sound of metal on metal his train of thought slammed hard on the brakes in order to make a transition to an entirely different track.

"I'm doing good," he finally said haltingly. He realized he was still leaned slightly forward in anticipation of hugging his friend. He slowly straightened up; this was distinctly not what he had been preparing himself for.

"How's the, uh, the leg?" Hoff said, glancing down at his shortened limb.

"It hurts a bit. Nothing really unexpected, though."

"Yeah, I bet," she mumbled, glancing down and away. A few seconds ticked by without movement from either of them. They just stood there like really awkward statues trying to find the right words to fill the air between them that was about to overflow with what they thought the other wasn't saying.

"So, how's the head?" Hiccup finally queried.

"My head?" Hoff absentmindedly touched the bandages that wrapped her cranium in a white swath. "It hurts, too. I guess. Probably not as bad as your leg, though." A few more seconds of awkward silence ensued.

"Do you want to eat with me and…" he gestured to the nurse, his voice trailing off as he realized he didn't actually know her name. She didn't have a nametag on her scrubs, and he just had always called her 'Ma'am.'

"No, thanks, I told someone I'd eat with them, today."

"Oh. Ok. Well, it was good to see you." Hiccup sat back down slowly, clearing the path for Hoff as she gave him a silent nod and moved a few tables away and sat down, alone.

Hiccup glanced at her as she sat there by herself, staring blankly at her food. She sure didn't look like she was ok. That conversation alone basically screamed 'I'm not myself right now.' After all of their months together for training, in garrison, and in deployment, he had never seen her act like that. She was usually so full of vigor. He had never seen her so lifeless.

Hiccup sat there for a few more minutes watching the nurse pick away at her food. That whole interaction with Hoff still nagged at his brain. Maybe he had been way too excited, given that she was probably still heavily medicated? Hell, when he had woken up he was so confused about what was going on and why, and he only had a leg wound. Hoff had been shot in the head, she must still have had a bunch of pain medications coursing through her veins. In fact, he remembered when one of his good friends back home had undergone surgery, the pain meds they gave him to take when he was home made him act strangely too. He didn't act like himself at all, in fact! Of course that's what it was, he was just too excited and in her drug-addled state, she couldn't react normally. Hiccup almost felt stupid for even thinking that she might have actually not wanted to talk to the only other person in this hospital who might have understood what the other was going through. Hiccup slowly rose, padding his way to her quietly on his crutches, taking extra precautions not to be overwhelming this time.

"Hoff?" He started slowly, quietly, at a volume below normal talking but above a whisper. He saw her arm flinch, and he took an extra deep breath, trying to be the most approachable person ever.

"What." Her voice dripped with malice. He gulped.

"I just wanted to make sure you were-" his sentence was cut off by the sound of a hand crashing into a table angrily. The crack made him jump in surprise, he came prepared for little to no response, and this undeniably more than a little bit of a response.

"Why can't you leave me alone, Hiccup?" Hoff rose up angrily, spinning gesture at him angrily with a hand bladed into a knifelike posture. "All this time you've been an incompetent buffoon, and now that our platoon is dead, could you please let me be? For once, just leave me alone!" She hadn't meant to shout at him, and in the near silence that the room had been before, the sudden outburst felt about a thousand degrees hotter than it had been intended. Hoff and Hiccup didn't realize it, but the whole room had stopped as the two had egregiously violated the 'maximum amount of energy in the room' law.

Hiccup looked at her, the fury still hot in her eyes. Welp, she was back to being herself. Yay. What a victory this was. He nodded silently, backing up slowly on the crutches. He turned, and silently sat back down at his table. The whole room breathed a sigh of relief, as heads turned back away from the commotion to pretend to continue what they had been doing previously.

He looked at the nurse, who had been watching what he was doing intently, in case he had tripped or otherwise needed assistance.

"Did I do something wrong?" He asked sullenly.

"Apparently," she said with a shrug. That wasn't super helpful.

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" The nurse nodded.

"She suffered trauma to her head. A bullet impacted the side of her head at about a twenty degree angle, giving her fractures along the length of the right side of her head. Actually, it was a good thing the bullet hit her at the angle it did, the number of fractures allowed the pressure a little extra room as the swelling—" Hiccup cut her off mid-sentence.

"No, not physically. I meant what's _wrong_ with her; why is she acting like that?" The nurse leaned to her right to get a better look at Hoff, before sitting straight up again and staring Hiccup in the face in order to give him her professional, medical opinion.

"I have no idea."

Hiccup sighed. He hadn't felt like this incapable in a while. He was going to watch his friends be laid to rest, and he had to be helped into his uniform. You'd think that on a day like today, he'd find a way to get into it himself, but he just kept almost falling. So against his better judgement, he had asked for help. He glanced down at his left leg with disdain, eyeing the blue trouser where it had been neatly folded backwards and pinned against itself in order to prevent it from dragging on the ground. He must have looked ridiculous.

Hiccup tried to straighten up his uniform in the relatively short car ride between Walter Reed and Arlington. No matter how he tried to smooth things out though, he knew he would have some wrinkles in his Army Service Uniform jacket by the time he stepped out. He glanced to his left, watching Hoff as she fidgeted with her own uniform. Actually, she wasn't futzing with it like he was. She was staring at a single new ribbon that adorned her chest. It was purple, with white stripes on the side.

She stared at it intently, watching light sheen of the ribbon change as she tilted this way and that in the car. Hiccup could see an expression that needed no explanation set grimly on her features. He too shared the same sentiment. How he would have given anything to get rid of this damn ribbon, this ribbon that all of his friends wore horizontally. The car eventually slowed to a halt, and a pair of soldiers boasting a 3rd Infantry Division patches and the most spotless uniforms the two had ever seen held the doors open for them.

A massive crowd formed before their vehicle, full of a vast assortment of people. Each family had had their own personal ceremony the previous day, but they were all to be laid to rest at the same time.

Before them laid a path along the grass, perfectly clear of all people, obstacles or other debris. Hundreds of faces turned towards them from both sides of the path. Cameras and news reporters filled were pushed up close to the edge of the path in order to get their best shot of the survivors and the families of the deceased. Behind them stood an untold number of unrelated observers here to pay their respects after all they had seen on the news. Hiccup appreciated their support, their willingness to at least be present for the families of those who were utterly wrecked by the last week.

Hoff took her first step down the aisle, Hiccup crutching along beside her. Hiccup glanced at the faces of the newscasters. He had never seen so many people look on him with sympathy. He took a second step. There were very few sounds to be heard at the moment. There were no cars running, no sneezing, no coughing, or any other distraction of any kind. Just utterly deafening silence. He could hear his crutches thump against the ground in time with Hoff's third footstep. A slight wind picked up, tugging on the coats of those in attendance, offering a light 'thwup' noise to break up the unnerving calm.

Halfway down the aisle, Hiccup got to see the next set of visitors. It looked like all of congress had shown up at this funeral, or at least most of them. He had never seen so many important people in one spot before. He couldn't help but think bitterly about how much those bastards who had taken his leg would have loved to sneak a bomb into here.

Looking at the faces of the politicians, he felt a strange strain of rage twist its way in the midst of his pangs of sorrow. There were a few faces amongst the crowd of politicians that looked… bored. Uninterested. Like this whole thing was just a big inconvenience for them. It's like they were there because if they weren't, it reflect poorly in their polls. And God forbid that something happen bad in their polls, that was truly a fate worse than… oh wait no it wasn't. At least that's the impression he got from them, he had no proof of that. Maybe he was just overly sensitive at the moment because this was probably the worst day of his life. Maybe. Maybe not. Who gives a shit. This whole event made him feel angry, sad, and guilty all at the same time. It was a weird concoction of misery that he hoped never to feel again.

He finally stopped short at the front of the aisle. He could have moved a few feet to the left and taken his sat down in the two remaining chairs, next to one of the families who sat in the front row, but he just couldn't. He stood transfixed, looking up and down the row. Eleven to his left, eleven to his right. A perfect row of silver coffins draped in the most beautiful cloth he had ever known.

He turned in the direction of his chair, crutching past it. He went all the way down the line, stopping at the first coffin. A wreath wrapped around the figure of large man in his full combat gear, a grin firmly emplaced on his lips and a jovial glint in his eye. Sgt Gobber. He turned slowly around, returning to the family directly opposite the coffin. He looked at Sgt Gobber's mother and father. Her older features wavered in an attempt to maintain a strong appearance. Hiccup was doing just the same, though admittedly much closer to failing. He stepped forward, wrapping her up in a hug.

"I'm so sorry," he finally choked out. Damnit, he promised himself he wouldn't cry. "I'm so very sorry." He finally pulled back from the embrace, noting that Mrs. Gobber had similarly broken her own promise. Tight lipped, he gave her a slight nod, stepping in front of Mr. Gobber.

"You must be the Haddock that our son told us so much about," Mr. Gobber said, lips pulled taught. Hiccup nodded slightly.

"I'm sorry," he said again. His words felt paltry in comparison to what Mr. Gobber was feeling, standing here laying his own son to rest. After a few seconds, he moved on the next family. He continued on, going to each of the twenty two families, offering what simple condolences he had to offer. It wasn't much, but he didn't know what else he could do. He felt like he had to do something, and what he was doing felt so inadequate. He finally sat back down on his chair next to Hoff, easing back down into it with a tired sigh. It was at that moment that he noticed the joint chief of staff had been standing by the podium the whole time. Usually it was him who would be waiting for hours on end for a general of any kind to show up, but now the singular highest ranking military officer who was waiting patiently for him to finish paying his respects to the families. Had it been other circumstances, he would have found this change of events oddly amusing.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began. "I have the honor of having the finest job in the world. I am responsible for this nation's greatest resource: America's sons and daughters. Each day provides me with new challenges and brings new delights as I learn about their accomplishments in defense of our great nation. And other days I am faced with my own failures. Today is unfortunately one of the latter," he said with a pause, shifting from one foot to the other.

"There are few days that are as singularly sobering as the ones like the day I got a call saying 'sir, we've lost a whole platoon.' It is a reminder to the rest of us, both military and civilian, of the price paid for our freedom. It is the most expensive price that can possibly be paid, and it is paid with the singular best thing our great nation produces: the blood of those who stand up in the darkest of nights and say 'Go rest, I'll stand watch over you tonight.'"

"I am reminded of the quote from George Orwell, 'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.' Well before you lay twenty two such men. Such men who were rougher and tougher than any I have ever known. And to them, I am eternally grateful. And to the families of the fallen," the general listed off all the names of the next of kin of the fallen soldiers, "to you I can one thing. I can only say that I wish had the proper words to express my condolences from both myself and the American people at the sacrifice you have made. Thank you for your time." It was a quick speech, with a rather abrupt ending, but the general wanted to say what he felt was necessary and not spend so much time up there that it felt like he was dragging on the ceremony unnecessarily.

Twenty two teams of honor guard soldiers snapped to attention, taking positions three deep on either side of each casket. With military precision, each flag was lifted off and folded crisply. Twenty two soldiers bearing flags approached the grieving family members, offering the flag that had draped over their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives.

Seven soldiers in the background snapped to attention, bringing rifles up to their soldiers. The first seven shots echoed in the still air. Hiccup glanced at Hoff, who stood still as death itself. A metallic clack sounded as the riflemen readied their next volley. The next seven shots cracked. Hoff visibly flinched, her shoulders drooping slightly.

"Ready!" Seven weapons snapped another round into the chamber in unison.

"Aim!" Seven weapons aimed into the air.

"Fire!" Seven weapons fired their last rounds. Hoff broke her perfect position of attention, her chin dropping to her chest. Her shoulders rocked in silent sobs.

A lone bugler steadied his instrument against his lips, sounding out Taps in a slow, solemn way that neither Hiccup nor Hoff would soon forget.

A/N #2: This scene was kinda hard for me to write. I try to get in the mind of the characters I'm writing and feel what they would be feeling, so I wrote the last part of this chapter imagining what I would be feeling if my friends in the military came home in boxes, or how I imagine my friends and family would react if I died. There'll be one more sad chapter (though less sad and more of just 'wow Hoff/Hiccup are really just hating life at the moment') and then it will get progressively more upbeat as the two go about fixing themselves and each other.


	4. Broken

A/N: This will be a long author's note, got a major life event (and its impact on the story) to discuss. First off, response to the guest reviews (I try to send PMs to everyone who leaves a review who logged in to do so)

Guest: Thanks! I personally felt like I wasn't doing the emotional scenes enough justice, and that's some of the weakest part of my writing. So I'm glad you thought that they were done well. That's encouraging, to me at least. I still need to work on them, though.

Ok, so the bad news first, and then the explanation of the life event (though the event itself is not bad). This story will have to be a lot shorter than I originally intended. I was originally going to push it out to hopefully 100,000 words, since I have never written anything that big before, I thought it would be a great challenge. Plus, I had extremely rudimentary plans to make it go that long. What that means is that I'll be accelerating the pace of the story quite significantly, which means that the events I had planned may happen faster than would make sense if they were real people. Which kinda sucks. But it'll have to do. And the reason for the abrupt change of pace is… I'm being deployed. Usually you're able to plan ahead on these things, since moving units downrange is something that is planned well in advance, but I'm in a unique situation. My time at my current station is up, so I'm PCSing (permanent change of station) to a new unit, and they're deploying in just a few months. So I'll have a month or two here, then I'll move, and a month or two later I'll be in the middle east. So yeah. Which brings me to my last point: If this story inspired anyone, let me know, because if you feel like you'd like to continue this story I'd be more than willing to pass off the reigns to you since I'll be focusing on other things for the next year or so after I PCS. So that's where I am right now. If nobody is interested, I'll try to finish up the story as quick as I can so that it's complete before I head downrange. So yup. On with the story.

Of all the time wasting things she had ever endured in her life, this was arguably the worst offender yet. And that is saying a lot, she was in the military. All she ever did was 'hurry up and wait,' just like all the other lower enlisted in all of the military. What's that? A battalion formation at 1600? Better have the company form up at 1545, have the platoon form up at 1530, have the squad form up at 1515, so she had better be there by 1500. Oh right, it didn't matter anyway, because the formation at 1600 was just to ensure everyone was there for when the Battalion Commander finally showed up at 1630, so he could tell all the leadership that he needed to see them tomorrow. God the Army was so dumb sometimes. But this? This had to take the cake.

"And how did that make you feel?" She almost wished that God would smite her into the ground at that very moment so that this endless monotony of timewasting could end.

"Well, I felt useless. There were so many of them and so few of us. We barely were able to break contact after we took out their machine gunners. And maybe if we hadn't, maybe if we had been able to keep their attention focused on us…" Hiccup's voice trailed off as he twirled one of his crutches aimlessly, eyes downcast. The therapist spoke up again.

"You can't play the 'what if' games, Specialist Haddock. You can't dwell on what might have been. More than likely, you would have all perished and then nobody would have been saved, but we have to focus on what is here and now."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed.

"What about you, Hofferson? What did you feel in the first few moments of the firefight?"

Hoff's nostrils flared in anger. This was such a pointless waste of time. Holy shit, she could be doing so many more valuable things than this right now. Literally anything would be more productive than this. She didn't know why they were sending her to PTSD counselling, she obviously wasn't a weakling, she could take combat and its repercussions without the help of others. But no, they had forced her to come. And worst of all, they had forced her to come and do group therapy with _him_.

It's not like she'd always hated Hiccup. It was a fairly recent development. In fact, she used to get along great with Hiccup, he had been one of her closer friends in the Platoon. He was smart, witty, a sarcastic bastard, and in general just a funny guy who was always there when you needed him. She used to be friends with him. She also used to have a platoon that was more than just a memorial.

Damn it all, this whole thing was someone's fault. And goddamn it, she'd run over it a million times in her mind. She'd thought about every single field training exercise they'd done before their deployment, every single mission, every single moment. She knew whose fault it was, and it pissed her off to no end.

Hoff turned her attention back to the question that had been presented her. She shrugged halfheartedly.

"Recoil."

"I'm being serious, Specialist Hofferson."

"So was I. I felt recoil every time I pulled the trigger." The therapist sighed, very nearly rolling his eyes.

"I'm asking about how you felt internally, not what you felt externally," he clarified. They both knew full well that she understood what he meant the first time, and was just being stubborn about it.

Hoff's mouth clenched shut, the muscles in her jaw flexed briefly as she ground her teeth together. The muscles on the right side of her neck popped out as she waged her own internal war. The therapist noted that there was a brief flash of intense anger in her eyes before she shut them tight. Hoff forced herself to relax, not because she wanted to actually talk to this stupid guy in this stupid room, but because contracting every muscle in her upper body put a lot of pressure on the metal plate that now took up a sizeable portion of the right side of her skull. And she was a long way away from being off painkillers. She reopened her eyes, merely a second and a half after the therapist had asked her the question, but she felt like she'd been sitting there trying to shut him out for ages. Her brow was still furrowed in pain from her mental outburst, and remained that way for another few minutes.

"Well?" The therapist finally said after another fifteen seconds of staring at each other.

"What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say that I'm stricken with grief over killing terrorists? I'm not. Do you want me to say that I was scared? I wasn't. Should I say that I was horrified over the deaths that happened? It's war. Death happens," she finished with a scowl.

"I want you to say the truth," he spoke in an infuriatingly even tone. "I want you to speak candidly about whatever you feel like."

"I am speaking the truth," she replied hotly. "I don't regret what happened on the mountain."

"And I'm not saying that you weren't speaking the truth. You asked what I wanted to hear, and that is my answer. I only ask that you speak candidly."

"Oh," she said in a small voice, sitting back into her chair. Apparently in her rant, she had begun leaning forward. She didn't remember exactly when, though.

"And you didn't feel any emotion at all at the beginning of the firefight?" the therapist continued back to his original line of questioning.

"Satisfaction," she said. "They were shooting at my friends, I wanted to save my friends and kill the ones who were trying to hurt them." She paused for a few seconds. "I got half of my wish, I guess." The therapist changed the subject.

"So after you shot the machine gunners out of the turret, what did you do next?"

"We fell," Hiccup said. "Technically we were sliding, but it was more falling than sliding. More painful than sliding, too." Hiccup said, absentmindedly rubbing his hip where a bruise still remained. When they had first arrived, they had been covered head to toe in bruises, partially from combat and partially from their descent. While most of them were healed, there were still a few of the deeper ones that lingered.

"And?"

"Well, I was still terrified," Hiccup continued. "I thought that the mountain was going to beat me to death and that years later they'd find my body at the bottom of a ravine, all beaten up and mangled." He said, twisting his fingers and hands together in a big lumpy knot to illustrate best he could what he imagined his body would have looked like. He took a few seconds, contorting his wrists slightly painfully to ensure that he fully portrayed corpse correctly.

"And what about you, Specialist Hoff?"

"I also thought I was going to die," she said with another nonplussed shrug.

"So you were scared?"

"I wasn't scared!" she said adamantly. "I just thought it was going to happen. Like I said, it was war. Death happens."

"Have you ever been scared of death?"

"Never!" She said, slightly haughtily. "We're soldiers. You have to accept the risk of death. It's an occupational hazard." The therapist looked at her hard, examining every inch of her face. Hoff half expected the a buzzer to sound as if the therapist had an internal lie detector that was about to physically manifest itself in the room, so that all of her secrets could be laid bare. It was like the therapist saw through her every façade as was examining her naked soul. She shivered slightly as the therapist slightly narrowed his eyes.

"I see. That's very… surprising."

"It is?"

"Yes, most people aren't that cavalier about their own demise. I appreciate your _honesty_ regarding such tough issues," the therapist emphasizing the one word as he stared at Hoff.

"Er, ah, well, no problem." She suddenly found herself stumbling over her own tongue trying to find the right words.

"Anyways, where were we. You had just fallen down the side of the mountain, correct?"

"Right," Hiccup interjected. "Well, we started picking ourselves up about halfway down, once we finally stopped rolling—" a knock sounded on the door, as the receptionist stepped inside.

"Excuse me Doctor, but you have another appointment waiting outside for you."

"Oh of course, the 1:30 appointment. How could I forget," he said, slapping his forehead. He turned back to the two patients inside. "Well, I'll see both of you back here," he paused, scanning their collective file before continuing. "In two days. Specialist Hofferson, may I see you a moment before you leave?" Hiccup took the hint, skedaddling as quick as his leg and crutches would allow. Hoff followed Hiccup with her eyes as he left the room, only looking back at the doctor once the door to the outside was shut.

"What do you want? I'm telling you the truth," she affirmed. The doctor held up his hands in a mock surrender.

"I know that, that's not why I asked you to stay behind. You just look extremely tired. Have you been sleeping well?"

"Yeah, of course." The deep bags under her bloodshot eyes told the truth, however. The doctor smiled knowingly.

"Well I'm going to write you a prescription for sleeping medicine anyway, just in case you need it." Hoff watched as his pen scratched at his prescription pad, filling in the boxes with a scrawl that she only hoped the pharmacist could decipher.

"Thanks," she mumbled, snatching the paper from his outstretched hand.

The orange bottle felt strangely cool in her hand, perfectly smooth save for the slight abrasion of the label that was wrapped around the translucent cylinder. She examined the bottle with a keen eye, twisting it in her grasp, peering at it from all angles. Maybe a dozen disc-shaped white pills rattled around inside like a medicinal maraca.

She had gone back and forth for hours debating whether or not she should get the prescription filled. She didn't want the help sleeping, but she wasn't getting restful sleep either. Somehow, she felt that taking sleeping pills meant that her own body had bested her, and she hated losing. So it was either admit defeat, or possibly sleep soundly through the night. If the pills were guaranteed to give her a good night's sleep, then she'd go for it. But she wasn't convinced that she was going to get the desired perfect night's sleep, so it was still a toss-up.

She flopped back on to her bed, tossing the bottle straight up in the air, idly switching which hand she caught and threw with. She kept weighing the pros and cons in her head, every few seconds thinking of something new to tip the balance in one way or another. After a few minutes of thinking, she flubbed one of the catches, the bottle crashing down against her chin, ricocheting into the corner of the room. She swore heavily for a few seconds, before jumping out of bed, picking up the bottle and staring at it angrily. Screw it. Why not.

In the space of a few minutes, she'd carried out her nightly 'get ready for bed' routine, pausing before the mirror with the bottle of meds in her hand. She glanced at it, slightly amused by the warning labels about operating heavy machinery under the influence of sleeping meds. Someone had to have done something incredibly stupid to warrant that cautionary note. She unscrewed the top, popped a pill into her mouth before downing it with a gulp of water. Grimacing at the bitter taste, she snapped the lights off in her room and plopped back down on her bed. She tugged the uncomfortable hospital linens tight around her, glancing at the clock that shone down upon her with unmercifully bright red numbers. 8:24.

Blinding sunlight forced Hoff's eyes open, as the sun set upon a ruggedly beautiful mountainside. Hoff glanced around, her boot-clad feet standing astride the crest of the craggy ridgeline. All below her she could see the landscape, every rock, every boulder, every tree, every stream, every nook and cranny of the landscape before her. She felt like a goddess, controlling all that she could see. And damnit, what good is it being a goddess if you don't explore your own land?

She took step down the one of the sides, away from the setting sun and down towards the shadowy areas. She frowned slightly, her footsteps felt heavier than she had expected. She glanced, almost surprised to see her old rucksack back on her back. The same ruck sack she'd had the entire time at Dragon Troop, the one she knew inside and out. The one that had the gashes she'd patched up with duct tape on the sustainment pouches on the left hand side because some idiot (Snot) had decided to bring and practice with his throwing knives during a field training exercise. The same one that had a few popped stitches on the right most seam. She felt a bit better once she saw it; it was like an old friend suddenly returned home. She shrugged the weight higher onto her shoulders and soldiered on.

She strode down the mountain confidently. A rock came loose under her feet, sending it and a bunch of its smaller companions skidding down the mountainside. She flailed her arms around trying to correct her balance, only barely bringing her weight back on top of her feet. The additional weight on her back in addition to flailing a rifle around made it challenging (at a minimum) to regain a semblance of balance. She brought the weapon back down diagonally across her chest, her gloved hand gripping the cold, sharp ridges of the empty rail system on the front of the weapon.

The weapon hitched on something as it slid back and forth across her chest as she walked. Glancing down, she realized she was rubbing it against her plate carrier and the corners of the weapon had been rattling against the corners of the magazines in her vest. She adjusted her hands so that the weapon would stop just short of the vest, instead of actually rubbing against it, continuing her trek down the mountainside.

Afternoon gave way into evening, and the shadows lengthened considerably. The temperature began to fall as she strode along, passing gurgling creeks with quick strides. She paused just beyond a boulder, letting the rucksack drop from her shoulders in order to pull out what was colloquially known as 'snivel gear,' basically anything that was designed to keep you warm or dry. With a warmer layer on, she paused before hoisting the weight up onto her back again.

Nighttime had fully enveloped the world, and she basked in its chilling beauty. The cloudless sky let a million stars glimmer down upon the landscape each vying for the right to be called 'the most gorgeous star in the night sky.' The crescent moon illuminated the barren parts of the mountain with the same soft glow that only night can provide.

Hoff reached up to her helmet, pulling down the monocle over her left eye, filling it with a green hue. Every single spec of light in the night sky exploded in light; the world above her became a deep green sea speckled with uncountable number glittering points of light. More stars than she had ever seen manifested in that green tint. After gaping for entirely too long, she returned her vision to the darker, shadowed areas of the mountain, shouldering her rucksack again.

She continued on to the deeper, darker parts of the mountain. That's the funny thing about night vision goggles, is that they enhance the available light. But when there's no light available to enhance, you're as blind as the next person. The shadows continued to pile on thicker, until she could barely see anything, even through the green flashlight held up to her left eye. After a while walking, she paused, glancing around her. Where was she?

The bushes to her right shook slightly. She whipped her weapon up, aiming at it what she had heard. She looked hard, unable to see through the veil of darkness. She heard a snap of a twig behind her. She whirled, snapping her weapon to her shoulder and dropping to a knee. She stared into the blackness, hardly daring to breath. She listened intently, hoping to hear what it was that was behind her. There was another rustle off to her right. She snapped her head in that direction, watching for even a hint of movement. A twig snapped off to her left. Screw this.

Hoff took off in a dead sprint uphill, tearing through the terrain as fast as her legs could carry her. Blood pumped through her veins, coursing through her body like fire as every muscle begged for mercy. She continued her sprint with unabating power. Rocks spat backwards from her feet like they had been fired from a cannon as she continued her ascent. A root hooked her right foot, sending her sprawling painfully against the dirt. She dropped the rucksack, spinning with her rifle downhill. Whoever had been following her would surely perish.

A single man emerged from the bushes, walking silently towards her. The sun must have started rising because she could see his face clearly, despite the camouflage paint he wore. She stood up in surprise.

Sgt Gobber?

Gobber walked up to her, pausing as he stood before her. She could barely believe her eyes. How was he standing in front of her, how could this possibly be happening. He looked at her for a few seconds before giving a disapproving scowl and walking off silently into the night. Another person filed into sight, emerging from the same bushes that Gobber had emerged from. Fishlegs. All in all, the remaining twenty people filed past her silently, faces mottled with black, green, and brown. Every weapon and piece of gear was taped so that they didn't make undue rattling noises. Each footfall was perfectly silent as they walked past her, a few giving her equally disapproving looks. A twenty-third soldier walked up, the last in the line.

"We're going off to fight, Hoff. Are you coming?" Hiccup said, staring her directly in the eyes. She wanted to say yes. She tried to say yes. Her mouth moved in a 'yes' shape but no sounds came out. She grasped her throat with one hand, as if she could force the words out of her mouth if only she could push it out. Hiccup scoffed. "Figured as much," he said with a sneer before following the rest of the platoon up the mountainside.

She tried to run after them, to join up at the back of the formation, but her feet suddenly refused to move.

She screams, her throat hurting from exertion, no noise

"Wait, wait. Don't go. Take me with you."

"Please don't go, I want to fight, please don't leave me alone" The stillness of the night settled in all around her, alone in the woods.

The first gunshot lit up the darkened mountainside. A hundred thousand shots erupted all at once, the once peaceful night scene erupting in a brilliant display of reddish hues. Red and green tracers danced back and forth across the craggy surface, each trying to extinguish the other's source.

Hoff once again tried to run to the aid of her friends, unable to move her legs. It was like her muscles had been completely spent on the sprint uphill, and now refused to even acknowledge her commands. She turned to yell after them.

"Wait, take me with you!" She wanted to yell. "I want to fight!" She tried to shout. Her throat hurt from the exertion of her attempts to make even the slightest noise, but her voice remained stubbornly absent.

The first muzzle flash lit up the mountainside with an orange light. Hoff jerked her head in its direction as a dozen other weapons all responded with their own salvo of crackles and pops. Green and red tracers danced their way along the mountainside, each desperately seeking the source of each other's harsh light.

A light flashed on in her mind as she realized that from where she was, she could see one of the sources of the tracers. She could help! She pulled her weapon up, pressing the weapon into her shoulder with her left hand. She took careful aim, slowing her breathing to almost naught. She slowly squeezed the trigger with her right hand, bringing the sliver of metal back carefully, smoothly. The weapon uttered an unsatisfying, metallic 'clack' as the hammer fell forward and refused to fire.

She could feel the panic well within her chest as she brought the weapon down slightly, smacking the bottom of the magazine. She canted the weapon slightly, grabbing the charging handle with her left hand, pulling it mightily to the rear. She froze as the T-shaped handle stayed back. Her magazine was empty.

She tapped the magazine release button, flicking the weapon slightly so the magazine fell down and away, bouncing to its resting place maybe three feet from her. She deftly grabbed the next magazine, smoothly inserting it and tapping the bolt release in the same motion. The bolt rode forward with a satisfying clunk, loading the next round. Taking considerably less time to aim, she pulled the trigger again.

The weapon still didn't fire.

Panicking, she pulled the mag out. Empty. She grabbed the next magazine from her vest. Empty. Empty. Empty, empty, empty! All of her magazines were void of ammunition. She hoisted the weapon over her head, hurling it the ground with all of her might. Sinking to her knees, Hoff's voice finally returned as she uttered the universal guttural cry of pain and loss.

The sun began peaking over the horizon behind her, baking the mountainside in a blood red glow. She leaned forward, her forehead lightly touching the ground in front of her. Tears turned the dust before her into tiny pools of mud. Over her crying, she almost didn't hear the sound of the warlord's militia walking up to her. She paused as she heard the sound of an AK cocking above her. She didn't even look up as the man pulled the trigger.

Hoff jumped straight up in her bed, drenched in sweat and as white as the hospital bedsheets. She flopped back down onto the bed, making an uncomfortable squishing noise as she impacted the puddle she had created. The clock shone down on her, the numbers 05:17 unmistakable in its unrelenting glare.

Damn, she'd slept through the whole night. She was never taking those meds again, though. The dreams were pretty standard; she'd been having those every night since _it_ had happened, or at least a variation on the same theme. Usually she could wake herself up when they started getting bad though, but apparently she couldn't do that while heavily medicated.

She slid onto the floor, weary from her decidedly not restful sleep. She trudged over to the mirror, examining the bags that were etching themselves further into her face with each passing day. Damnit, what she would give for just one dreamless night of sleep.

She turned on the faucet, splashing her face with the cold water that poured into the porcelain bowl. The remnants of water streamed down her face in rivulets, dropping off of her chin into the sink with tiny splashes.

Goddamnit.

She balled her fists on the edge of the sink, nearly lifting herself off the ground with the pressure she put onto her knuckles. How many times had she been here? Seven, in the last seven days. What a track record. And here she was again, plagued by nightmares, unable to sleep. Unable to think.

She sat back down on to her bed, smashing her fists into her eye sockets, trying to punch the memories out of her head. She tensed every muscle in her body as she could feel the throbbing headache that came with too much pressure on the metal plate in her skull begin to set in. Damnit. Damnit all. Everyone else could do this, everyone else could cope with the pain, cope with the loss, cope with the dreams. But not her. Why couldn't she do it?

Her hands jumped up to her hair, grabbing it by the roots and pulling mightily downwards. She could feel her teeth grind under her pained grimace. God she was so stupid. She had joined the military partly to prove that she was just as strong as anyone else, stronger even. But here she was being cut down by what everyone else could deal with no problem. She was alone in her agony, and nothing and no one could help her.

Who was she supposed to talk to, the therapist? What the hell had he done that could possibly let him relate to her situation? All he'd done was take some stupid bullshit classes that made him talk about his feelings, and whoop de doo, now here he was like a goddamn expert. To hell with him. He had no idea what she was going through.

It wasn't out of the question to talk to Hiccup, given that he was literally the only other person who had gone through the—no. No, no, no. Hell no. There was no way in hell, that she was going to let him see how much of a fucking weakling she was. She'd spent all that time proving she was the toughest soldier in the platoon, there was no way in hell she'd just let him see that. What the hell would he think of her? He would probably hate her and blame her for the death of their platoon, and she wasn't going to let that happen. Fuck. Anything but that.

What the hell was she supposed to do? Just wait until life came by and gave her another shot to the stomach? She wasn't coping well as it was, she couldn't take another hit.

Actually, a shot didn't sound that bad right about now. A lot of them. The more alcohol the better. She pushed herself to her feet, the throbbing in her head causing her a second or two of dizziness, but she quickly figured out which way was the floor and sorted out the issue.

Now the hospital didn't have a bar, but it did have a pharmacy. Maybe she could convince one of them to give her a refill on her Vicodin, that'd take her mind off of everything. At least for a bit. She meandered through the hallways, finally finding the precious dispenser of medicine without a line. Thank god.

"Excuse me, hi, can I get a refill on Vicodin?" She said as sweetly as she could to the pharmacist. The guy behind the counter looked at her like she had four heads.

"No. Are you nuts? We don't give medicine directly to patients here. Where's your nurse?" He said, leaning forward and looking behind her and to the side.

"I just woke up and I have a splitting headache, I need something. Please," she said, nearly begging him at this point.

"No," he said with finality. Hoff stood there for about thirty more seconds, shifting weight from foot to foot.

"Please?"

"Get out of here, I'm not giving you medicine unless your nurse comes and gets it!" He said like he was shooing a dog away from a meal that had just popped out of the oven. Hoff took the hint, slinking away. Damnit her head still hurt. And she still had enough presence of mind to remember what a terrible excuse for a soldier she was. Double fun.

She plopped down on a nearby chair that was meant for the families of patients, but she doubted anyone was going to stop her. She sat there, sulking for a bit. She began to think through the mission for the hundred thousandth time. It was all she did in her spare time, it felt like. It was her favorite most hated hobby, and she was really good at it. She started over at the beginning, when she first heard the sounds of the cars.

Listen. Shoot. Fall. Run. Hide. Shoot. Hit. Awaken.

Listen. Shoot. Fall. Run. Hide. Shoot. Hit. Awaken.

She replayed the memories over and over, getting steadily angrier and angrier. Damnit all, where the hell was Hiccup? She was going to give him a piece of her mind about all of this. This whole thing, it just sucked! She knew who was to blame for all of this, too.

She strode through halls angrily, mumbling the numbers on the doors as she passed. She took a few quick turns, focusing on the room numbers the whole way. Evens on the left, odds on the right. Another turn led her down the last hallway.

Room 1043. She paused by the doorway, wondering if she should go in now, or wait until later. She glanced in the window, noting that the shades were pulled up. Hiccup sat on the bed, reading some book by the light of his phone. She opened the door almost shyly; the anger that she had pent up had been spent on the way here.

Hiccup looked up from his book, noting the stature of the person who entered the room.

"Hoff?" It looked like Hoff, but the posture had that same slinking lioness look that she had since they had shown up here. Hoff walked over to his bed, spinning and sitting in one smooth motion at the edge of his bed. Hiccup straightened up, sitting cross-legged next to her. "Are you ok?" A touch of concern in his voice.

"A… Astrid," she finally said.

"Beg pardon?"

"My first name's Astrid. I figure that as the only… as the two…" she tried a couple more times to finish the sentence but couldn't find a way to. "It doesn't seem right that you and I only know each other by our last names." Hiccup nodded, offering his right hand.

"Hi Astrid, my name's Henry." She shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you," she said, trailing off at the end. After a weak handshake, she dropped her eyes to the floor in the darkened room, not moving an inch. Hiccup went back to his previous line of questioning.

"Astrid, are you ok?" The room remained silent for a few more minutes. Hiccup watched Astrid's neck move slightly in the low light, like she was trying to talk but unable to.

"It's my fault," she finally said, just above a whisper.

"What?"

"It's all my fault. I'm the reason they're dead, they died because I couldn't—" all the bottled up pain, anger, and misery came gushing out in a series of strangled sobs too pitiful to describe.

"Astrid, it's not your fault," Hiccup said, scooting closer to her.

"No, it is. If I thought our security position was too close. If I had pushed up further like I had intended, I would have heard the trucks sooner and I would have saved them. If I had been faster on the trigger, I would have been able to shoot the gunners faster and I could have been able to save them. It's all my fault. All of it." Hiccup reached forward, grabbing her around the shoulders, pulling her tightly. Hot tears dropped on his arms as he hugged her.

"It's not your fault, none of it is."

"But it is! If I hadn't flicked the safety switch when I did, you'd still have your leg. It's all my fault, and I'm so sorry." She pushed away from his embrace. "Please forgive me," she pleaded. Hiccup looked at her tearful eyes, before pulling her back into a hug.

She didn't care if her wailing was causing a scene. She didn't give a shit. All she wanted was to stay in those warm arms that felt safer than a bullet proof vest.

"There's nothing to forgive," he said softly as she cried into his shoulder. "There's nothing to forgive."

A/N: Survivor's guilt is real, people.


	5. Muscle

A/N: Just a heads up, nothing exciting happens in this chapter.

Guest 1: It was bittersweet, but there you could definitely start to see the tinges of the silver lining. Thanks for your word of encouragement, I'll do my best!

Guest 2: Thanks, I'm really glad I was able to write it effectively. I'm going to try to finish it, but I'm sure if anyone picks it up, they'll do a better job than I can at telling the story, since I know I'm not that great of a writer (see: username) especially in comparison to some of the people here. Oh, and you're welcome.

Astrid struggled to open her eyes, having to intentionally focus on lifting one sleepy eyelid at a time. Finally, she was able to pry her left eye open, and after a great deal of effort, her right eye as well. And they closed again. Open. Closed. Open, for real this time. The problem with sleeping is that sometimes when you awoke it was like battling a force of nature just to gain enough wakefulness to actually wake up. Astrid found herself on that battlefield at that moment, trying to shake the grip the horrible Z Monster had on her head. After a few moments, the room slowly returned to focus.

She could tell by the feeling in her mouth that either she had been sleeping with her mouth wide open or had been drooling heavily since she had fallen asleep. God, it was like a desert had crawled into her mouth, setting up a home while she was asleep. A home for itself _and_ its neighbors. Hell, there was probably a whole apartment complex of deserts in her mouth. Based on the fact that she could smell her own breath, a couple of the new inhabitants had probably died as well. Shifting her head slightly down, she could tell by the large-ish, still slightly damp mark on Hiccup's shirt she quickly concluded that she had been drooling all night. Wait, Hiccup?

Astrid's head jerked sharply as she looked up from where she lay. Sure enough, she saw the lanky man's head tilted towards her, eyes grinning more than his mouth was. She looked over her shoulder, noticing that his arm was still around her neck, holding her far shoulder. When did that happen? It was at that moment she realized she had been sleeping with her head laying on Hiccup's torso.

It wasn't the first time they'd been touching while sleeping, but this time it just felt awkward. They'd slept together a bunch of times when it was cold as hell outside and they had to just lay in the prone and watch a bridge or something equally exciting.

"Morning sleepyhead," Hiccup said with a slight chuckle in his voice. "Or to be slightly more accurate, 'good afternoon.' It's almost 1PM."

"What year is it?" She rubbed her eyes.

"2187, you've been kept alive in a stasis chamber, and have only been resurrected in order to," his eyes widened as he made grandiose gesture with free hand, "save the world! And to get off my arm, because it's fallen asleep." Astrid sat up, hair streaming behind her in disarray.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly.

"Eh, no worries. You looked like you needed both sleep and comfort. I just hoped I was able to provide the second."

"It did help a bit. Thanks Hiccup. Er, Henry." She said the last two words with furrowed brows, pronouncing the name like it was this strange new sensation that she wasn't sure she'd be able to get used to.

"Did you at least get good sleep?" Astrid's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Now that you mention it, yeah. I didn't dream at all. Kinda surprising."

"That's great! Hopefully it stays that way."

"Yeah, hopefully," she sighed. "Hey Hic—Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for being a bitch these last few days." He waved a hand in front of his face with a flicking motion.

"Don't worry about it. Water under the bridge."

"No, but I mean it. I was really an asshole to you, especially in the cafeteria." Henry sat up in the bed, swinging his legs and foot over the side and bringing himself shoulder to shoulder with Astrid.

"It's really not that big of a deal. You were working through some stuff, we both were. Both are," he said with a slight grimace. "I just thought you were blaming me, and I should just leave you alone, so I did. At least, as much as I could."

"What? No, I blame myself. Why would I blame you?"

"Blamed, you mean? As in past tense? Right?"

"No, still do," Astrid said quietly, glancing down at the floorboards. "Maybe 90% blame me, instead of 100%. But still do. And I was a bitch to you because I screwed up most of my platoon so badly, I didn't want to somehow destroy your life by association. I thought you'd be better off without me. Ow!" Astrid complained as Henry elbowed her in the arm.

"That's for being a moron… and a bitch." He then switched over to giving her a quick side hug. "And that's for everything else. You're a great person Astrid, a good friend, a soldier I'm proud to have served with. I'm just glad you came and talked to me before you went and did something stupid." She looked down sheepishly, blushing slightly. The two sat there for a few moments, neither wanting to speak. Henry suddenly glanced at the clock on the wall and swore.

"I'm late," he announced after a long stream of epithets. "I've got to get to physical therapy."

"Yeah, I should probably go on a run or something, anyway. It's been a while since I've worked out," Astrid said, jumping off the bed.

"See you in a few hours?"

"You betcha."

Astrid stood outside, stretching in warmth of the mid-afternoon sunlight. It had been far too long since she'd been on a run. Even without the last week, the deployment had wreaked havoc on her workout schedule. She was used to doing a mix of long and short runs, but there was something that held her back from doing the kind of long runs she wanted to do. That thing was called bullets. Inside the forward operating base and safe from hostile fire, there just simply wasn't enough space to do sprinting either. So since she had deployed, she hadn't done any intentional running workouts. There were a few that she had gotten in, but those were more in the 'life and death' category than actual workouts.

And now here she was, muscles all locked up from inconsistent use, each stretch seemingly more painful than the last. However, she really enjoyed stretching her legs. She gained a decent amount of pleasure from the sensation of the stretch. She loved the painful pull of the muscle, followed by that breathtakingly wonderful release when she relaxed. Maybe she was just a masochist though.

She let go of the balls of her feet, finally standing upright to finish limbering up for her run. Her final 'stretch,' if you could call it that, consisted of shakiner her arms and legs about, like she could somehow dislodge the stiffness in her muscles and send them flying out the tips of her limbs and onto the ground, where they would no longer be a hindrance. She had made up her mind about ten seconds ago that she'd do an 8x400 workout, guestimating that if she ran around this corner around to the far side of that building and back, it'd be close enough to 400 for her purposes.

Astrid finally settled down, dropping down into a running position. She tensed up, readying herself for her first few strides. She imagined the ground underneath her feet cracking under the pressure she was building up in her legs for her first lap; she imagined the wind splitting before her as her body took off at previously unheard of speeds. She closed her eyes, picturing the speed at which she was about to run. A second later her eyes popped open, a determined look set on her features.

And she was off.

The wind tore at her pants in an annoying way. It was almost like the hospital hadn't issued her running clothes, and that she was supposed to stick to her physical therapy plan of 'light aerobic exercise for the next month only under the supervision of trained therapists.' But that was dumb, and her body hadn't felt this alive in a while.

She turned around the corner, nearly slamming into a doctor that was engrossed in a patient file. She half turned away him as she flailed her arms in order to shift her momentum, mumbling sorry as she passed so close he could feel the wind that she generated.

She began slowing as she raced up to the back side of the building that was her 200m mark. Her feet skidded on the concrete as she peddled quickly in reverse to slow herself down. She reached out a hand, lightly brushing the wall with her fingers, noting how cool and smooth the wall was. Just like that, the gingerly touch ended and she spun 180 degrees, accelerating as fast as she could again. Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat pumping new vigor into her bones as she hurtled back to where she had started. She leaned slightly as she sped back around the corner.

She cruised across the finish, glancing down at her watch with a frown. _110 seconds?_ She internally whipped herself for being slow as shit. She blamed the cardio during the deployment. Holding her hands to the back of her head, she walked around in aimless circles for a few more seconds. Only 30 seconds left of her 60 second cool down. She tried to control her breathing and her heart, but she barely was able to stop gasping before the last 30 seconds had ticked away. She placed her feet back into her starting stance, getting ready for her next lap. She tried to conjure the same amount of energy as her first lap, but it seemed difficult to even start running, let alone shoot out like a speeding bullet like last time.

Oh God her legs felt like they were lead. How could one lap have such a harsh impact on her? Breaths came in sharp gasps as she rounded the corner for the third time. Every muscle in her body ached fiercely; each step was a battle of wills of her body against her mind. As the turnaround rapidly approached, she began her series of rapid, short steps to bleed off the excess speed. Astrid slammed into the wall with an arm outstretched, using a combination of her momentum and her arm strength to launch herself back in the opposite direction.

She thought for a second about slowing down, coasting through to the end at the speed she was currently at. She contorted her face in hatred aimed at herself. There were exactly twenty two people who couldn't push themselves hard anymore because of her, and twenty three people incapable of running. If she slowed down, she'd be doing them a disservice. She'd rather die than let them down. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor, paying no attention to the muscles that cried for mercy. She crossed the finish line, taking four large, jolting steps before coming to a halt. She bent over, her hands grasping her knees and panted for air. She let her breath return before she checked the watch. 109 seconds. Well, that was certainly not the time she was expecting, she fully had expected to add at least five seconds to the run time, given how much pain she was in. Maybe she should only do 4x400, instead of the full eight.

Six laps later, Astrid leaned up against the wall panting for breath. It had taken until the third or fourth lap, but the humid day had finally caught up with her. It must have been the wind that had kept her coolish for the first few laps, but when the heat finally knocked at her doorstep, it had shown up with a vengeance. What had been a dry forehead was almost immediately dripping sweat down the front of her face. And the fact that she was leaving a shoulder print of sweat on the wall behind her gave her a pretty good idea as to how much was covering the rest of her body.

She thrust her arms back, popping herself off of the wall to firmly plant all of her weight on her own two feet. She ran five fingers through the front of her hair before dragging her hand back down diagonally across her face. With a flick, she sent the perspiration flying from both her head and her hand to splatter against the ground. She had done it, all eight laps. She thought she was going to die on the last one, but somehow managed to keep even the last lap around the 120 second mark. Slow as hell for sure, but still not as bad as it could have been. Plus, now she was back on the grind, and she'd be coming back for more. No pain, no gain, roger? She rolled her eyes at her own internal voice, mentally noting that she should strangle herself if she ever talked to herself in Army-speak again.

She turned to go back inside, relishing in the air conditioning that wafted towards her as she neared the automatic doors. She could feel the sweat starting to dry on her skin in flakes, making her whole skin feel just… icky. God, she wanted a shower so badly at that moment. She walked through the hall, pausing mid-stride to look through a window that was twice as long as she was tall, laced with safety wire. Through the panel she could see the gym, where H-Henry was finishing up his therapy with a series of stretches.

Astrid watched through the glass as he gritted his teeth, pulling firmly but gently on his nub, a feeling of guilt washing over her. She could see him mentally counting upwards, finally breathing a sigh of relief once he let go on the count of twenty. He reached over to the other leg, pulling on it in a similar fashion, though it was obvious that the intact leg was far less painful to stretch than the half leg. Astrid sidled to the door, pushing it open silently with one hand. In less than ten seconds she was standing over his shoulder.

"Hey." Henry jumped in surprise, twisting his body sharply to look behind and above him.

"Oh, hey. What's up?" She shrugged.

"I was just on my way back to my room and I saw you in here. Thought you might need a hand or something."

"Astrid, I'm a cripple, not an invalid," he said with a slight laugh. Astrid remained silent, glancing down for a second. "Ok, ok," he said, holding up a hand in a 'stop' gesture. "I get it; the joke was in poor taste."

"Ya think?"

"I usually don't, and I usually get in trouble for it too." That made her chuckle.

"You sure you don't need anything? At all? I've got nothing better to do."

"Well, I'm done with therapy, but since I was here I was going to get a short lift in. Do you want in?" Astrid weighed the options. On the one hand, she was super tired from her run. On the other, she still blamed herself for his limb loss.

"Sure, I guess. As long as it isn't leg day, I just finished a run and my legs are done."

"Yeah, definitely am not planning on lifting legs for a bit." Astrid got this horrified expression on her face, as she stumbled over her own tongue trying to find the right words. No complete sentence emerged, but she spluttered a lot of "I didn't"s followed by a bunch of apologetic words that were well intended.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking," Astrid finally managed to get out. Henry burst out laughing.

"Oh man, you should have seen your face. It's no big deal, really. It's completely inconsequential. I know you weren't thinking about it. I'm still getting used to it, and they're my legs."

"Still, I should have thought before I put my foot in my mouth." Astrid suddenly froze, looking at him with an expression that wrote plainly across her face 'oh no I messed up again didn't I?' Henry, on the other hand, looked like he was about trying very hard not to laugh.

"It's fine, really. Anyways, what do you _want_ to lift?"

"You asked me, remember? Don't you have a plan already?" He gestured towards her with a slightly curved hand, one finger slightly more outstretched than the others. It was like he was going to point at her, but halfway through the motion he realized he didn't want to, but since his hand was already there, it'd be a waste of energy to change it.

"Hadn't got that far yet. I literally just had the idea." Astrid glanced around at the gym gear before offering an option.

"Well how about… the bench? I'm assuming you haven't done that in a while either, and it's fun." Henry shrugged.

"Sure, why not." The two quickly took up position at the most coveted piece of equipment in the gym, preparing to set up a show for all those around them. People would bask in their glory as they pumped weights harder and faster than everyone else. Or in reality, nobody would give a shit about the miniscule weights they were putting up, since everyone there was focused on their own workout.

Henry settled onto the bench under the weightless bar, assuming the proper stance. Or he almost did. He frowned as he realized he couldn't plant his left leg on the ground. It felt weird, and it threw off his balance a bit. Even though he knew it was only 45 pounds now, he knew it would the effect would be more pronounced as he stacked on extra weight.

He lifted the bar from the uprights, pulling it out and directly over his chest. He let the bar drop quickly to his chest, holding it at the bottom for a few seconds. He popped the bar back up quick enough that the weight of the bar came off his hands for a second before immediately returning crush his wrists. He snapped out nine more reps before dropping the bar onto the small metal ledges that protruded from the vertical posts on the bench. He sat up, hopping around the far side. Since he was basically within arm's reach of where he wanted to be anyway, he didn't feel the need to use his crutches. Astrid jumped forward, using her momentum to swing down onto the bench.

"So what do we do now?" Henry asked. The question caught Astrid off guard.

"What do you mean? Like what do we do after bench?" Astrid said after she finished her set.

"No, I mean we're both going to be medically discharged, probably. Do you have any idea what you're going to do next?" She sat up on the padded surface, looking back at him questioningly.

"What made you think of that?"

"It's just been on my mind for the last day or so. I'd been so focused on the military that I hadn't thought about what to do after the military. It just occurred to me that I might not be able to do many of the things I wanted to do in my life." Astrid pondered for a moment.

"I dunno. I hadn't given it any thought. I'd always assumed I'd be doing this for the rest of my life. Now… like I said I haven't really given it thought. I guess I should go to college, but I still have to figure out what kind of job I want. 45s?" Henry nodded as she stood up to grab the plate from the bottom of the rack next to her. She slid the octagon onto the bar where it rattled slightly.

Henry slid onto the bench, bracing his body for the next set. He pulled his shoulders back and popped the bar up. Five reps later, he was sitting up again.

"Now that you mention it, I don't even know what kind of job I'd want either. I just remember all of our sergeants telling us that going to college is a must, both in and out of the military. But I dunno what I'd do. I've always like sciencey things, so I imagine I'll probably get some sort of STEM major. Probably Mechanical Engineering, now that I think about it. I can use that just about anywhere. Probably." Astrid slapped Henry's back, pointing towards the 25 pound plate. He teetered a bit replacing the 45 with the 25, but got it done eventually.

Astrid dropped down, knocking out a set of 5 without effort. She lay there a little longer, letting her arms fall down and back in a long stretch as she her train of thought pulled into station.

"I suppose I'll get a degree in criminal justice or something. I was born a sheepdog, and damnit I'll be a sheepdog 'till the day I die." Astrid referenced the oft-used adage about the three types of people in the world; the sheep, the sheepdog, and the wolf. The saying was supposed to describe how of the people capable of violence (the dogs), you can either be a protector or an attacker.

"Do you need a degree in criminal justice to be a cop?"

"I have no idea, probably. Seems like everyone I know is getting a degree in criminal justice, so I'll at least have other sheepdog friends to hang out with once I get there. Good luck finding kindred spirits in your nerd school."

"I'm sure I can find some other vets somewhere. They'll be easy to find. They'll be the ones with the long beards and the oh-so-subtle Ranger Up or Grunt Style gear," Henry rolled his eyes when he referenced the military-specific clothing lines. Nothing says 'Hi, have I told you about my time in the service?' than a T-Shirt with a skull, crossed M4s and super bravado-laden quotes written in distressed text.

Henry reached over, stripping off the 25 pound weight before adding a 45 and replacing the 25 on the outside.

"I guess you're right, they probably aren't too hard to find. Plus, dorms are probably a lot like barracks. Crowded, dirty, overflowing with alcohol, and inhabited by man-children."

"Ha ha, you're probably right." Henry stopped talking as he finished his next set. As he sat up, he frowned. "What are you going to do immediately post-hospital?" Astrid started to talk, stopping as she realized she actually had no plan. The result was her mouth flopping open once or twice without actually saying anything. She paused, touching her chin lightly as she thought for a few moments.

"That's a really good question. I'm hoping that before I leave I'll have a plan for that." Astrid reached over, stripping the 25s off, leaving only the 45s for her next set.

"You going to stay with your folks?"

"Oh _hell_ no. No. No way. Never. Why, are you?"

"No, I probably won't stay with your parents." Astrid cuffed him pretty hard on the side of the head. "Ok, ok. Geez, I won't stay with your parents, I can take a hint." Astrid wound up, delivering a knockout punch to his gut, leaving him gasping for breath. While he was recovering, she pumped out her set.

"Are you done joking, funny boy?"

"Ok, damn. No sense of humor, got it. No, I don't think I will either. I might live with my Mom, if she lives near a college I want to go to or something. But I could not live with my Dad, no way. Just could never happen." Astrid slapped the second set of 45s onto the bar for Henry.

"Well, I'm going to figure out somewhere to stay, at least until I get to college," she said as Henry struggled to get the bar up for the third rep. As the weights came clanging back down on the rack, Henry voiced his thoughts.

"Do you know where?"

"I dunno, maybe Atlanta? There's probably a school down there I can get a good degree at. Plus, I have some friends down there."

"Need a roommate? I'm sure I can find a Mech – E program down there." Astrid looked slightly above the horizon, weighing the pros and cons in her head.

"Sure, why not. I could use the help on the rent," she finally said. Henry leaned over, grabbing the second 45 and pulling it off. Shortly after, Astrid slid on a 10 pound weight on each side.

"Plus, it'll be nice having someone I know around to be able to fall back on, especially coming directly out of here." Astrid didn't directly respond, struggling with the weight on the bar. She eventually was able to get it high enough to re-rack it on her fourth rep, though she had to have a bit of help from Henry.

"Yeah, it will be nice."

Astrid let the water from the shower pour over her body, soothing her aching muscles with its piercing heat. Everything hurt. _Everything_. Her legs had been shot from her running workout today, and then she stupidly agreed to lift with Henry, and now her chest, arms, and back were sore from the bench press, overhead press, and weighted pull ups that they'd done. Why oh why oh why did she agree to that?

Her hair clung to her head and shoulders, doing little more than guiding the torrents of water over her skin. With her head slightly hung, the water gushed over her face and down her cheekbones, causing her to spray the side of the shower with mist every time she exhaled.

Today was a good day, though. Despite the muscles that cried for relief with every passing moment, she considered the day a success. She had had a super embarrassing breakdown in front of Henry this morning, but the end result was something that she was happy with. Her family was reunited.

Or at least, the remainder of it was.

That was another thing, she hadn't planned on having the heart-to-heart about their future plans during the lift, but she was glad she did. He had offered to room with her, which meant to that he probably wasn't still pissed at her about the whole 'failing the platoon and getting them all killed' thing, which was good. Now if only she could also stop being so damn angry about that as well. Oh well, baby steps.

With a groan, she lifted her arms up, running her hands through her hair. She squeezed whatever remained of the shampoo and conditioner out of her hair, letting the suds-and-water mixture run through her fingers. She shut off the water a few minutes later, realizing that unfortunately, you can't stand in the shower forever.

She couldn't wait to get some sleep that night; her legs were already leading her towards the bed with a mind of their own. She wrapped flicked off the light in the room, collapsing into her bed with a tired 'harrumph' as she hit the mattress. There was a brief moment where she realized she hadn't dried off her hair yet, but she quickly waved it away. She'd deal with it tomorrow; right now she just wanted more dreamless sleep. At least she got half of what she wanted.

A/N: The title of the chapter was supposed to relate more to their relationship rather than the actual strength building they're doing. Since muscle is made stronger by breaking it and letting it regrow, I thought it was kind of an apt setting and description.


	6. The Result of Boredom

Boredom. Unrelenting boredom. Henry had grown used to being bored in the Army, it's a talent that most enlisted master during their career for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was that the fact that the army fostered a culture of 'hurry up and wait,' so people were used to standing around and waiting for something to happen. This culture, though annoying, was not without reason. It's much better that you are waiting for a helicopter to arrive than it is for the helicopter to wait for you to show up. That being said, maybe it was just all of the inane stuff that he had to do when he was in garrison. What's that? You're not doing anything? Let me help you, I can ensure that you aren't bored when you're cleaning the floors! Though most likely, it was because of the complete lack of trust higher ups put in the E-4s and below. The attitude of 'you know enough to cause a lot of damage, but ultimately I'm financially responsible so just sit down and don't break anything' that was the cause of a lot of boredom. Well, to be completely honest, it was the 'don't break anything attitude' that meant they were always available for the stupid floor polishing details in the first place. Regardless the exact cause, he was used to having his hands free.

You know the saying 'idle hands are the devil's playground?' That's a saying that's often true of children who can find ways to entertain themselves given the opportunity. That saying should have been written about soldiers, though. Imagine if the children the adage was supposed to apply to were now fully grown but still children in both heart and attention span? Can you imagine the destruction that can be wrought by a whole platoon of such children, whom all are equally bored and imaginative? Henry's platoon had spent plenty of time being bored—and creative. For example, there was the one time that they had got bored enough that they launched a raid on a neighboring platoon using a combination of MRE bombs, firecrackers, and nerf guns. They had gotten in a lot of trouble for that; their First Sergeant had been _pissed_. The phrase 'unending pushups' had never been such a reality before. There were also the times that they almost burned down the barracks. The most memorable time they almost lit everything on fire was when one of their NCOs had informed them that C4 only detonates with a blasting cap and is in fact distinctly flammable, and can be set on fire without exploding. Needless to say that the rumor was true, and that they had spent a bunch of time lighting it on fire, only once did they set someone's recycling bin ablaze.

Needless to say, Henry and his platoon had become experts on boredom. They had even made a ranking system to immediately convey how bored they were to the extremes of both ends of the spectrum. The furthest to the right of the spectrum was the easiest one to identify. It was the most anti-bored, the most intensely focused, and the one with undoubtedly the most terror. Combat. There really was no explanation needed why that was it was the extreme of its end of the spectrum.

Just under that was 'Hiccup Focus.' Early on in his time at the unit, he had focused so intently on cleaning his weapon perfectly the first time, it took him a few minutes to realize that everyone else had left for lunch. So he had unfortunately been the source for the nickname for being intently focused on something menial or otherwise boring.

Next up was simply titled Good Fun. Moderate focus on activities that were generally considered enjoyable by those involved. Things included in this: video games, personal hobbies, and social gatherings. Things not included in this: anything related to the Army.

The middle of the spectrum was Neutral. Neutral was reserved for things that you still needed to focus on, but were not exactly enjoyable either. They didn't have to be miserable to do, but they did require you to actually concentrate on the task at hand, as opposed to the deepening levels of boredom that would require physical effort to stay awake.

Moderate Boredom was used for times like when they stretching out how long it took them to clean the vehicles in the motorpool, meanwhile consistently smoking and joking with each other. With all tasks complete, they fell back onto their natural state of hanging out with each other and trying to take up as much time with nothing so that if any taskings did come down their way, they'd have proven themselves to be too busy doing this one last thing.

Security. Pulling security was possible the most boring thing you can do while in the Army. There's only so many ways you can keep yourself entertained while unmoving, laying in the prone, and in the middle of the woods. At some point you almost wished that the enemy would show up so you would have something to do, but then you immediately realized that that wish was retarded and go back to silently hating everything and wondering what you did in a previous life to put you into this puddle of ice/mud mixture in the torrential, freezing rain.

Finally, the most bored they had ever reached Henry had nicknamed The Void. All tasks had been completed, all possible conversations had happened, the internet had been thoroughly scoured and _somehow_ they hadn't yet been released for the day. The only possible course of action when you reach this pit of desperation is to start some shit that will undoubtedly get you in trouble. But hey, at least you're not bored anymore.

At this particular point in time, Henry was considering making a new level of bored below The Void.

His usual daily activities were limited to eating, physical therapy, and weight lifting with Astrid. As of a few hours ago, all those activities had been accomplished, and he was still here trying to find something to entertain himself with.

The few websites he was used to checking had been scoured _thoroughly_. They had been scrubbed clean of new content from every possible angle, even the comments had been searched until there was hardly an unseen post. He tried to start a conversation or two with the nurses that periodically came in to check on him, but they all had their jobs to do. The discussions he had, while temporarily alleviating him of the monotony that plagued him, were far too short to satisfy his need to do something new.

About an hour ago he'd found some small, rubberish almost-spherical object that probably had a medical purpose. But to him, he'd just found a ball. 30 minutes of bouncing the ball to himself off of nearly every conceivable hard surface in his room, and he found himself back where he had started.

Henry lay on his back, tossing the ball lazily towards the ceiling, catching it with his opposite hand. He desperately needed a distraction.

Every second that passed without something to occupy his mind meant that something else would force itself into the forefront of his thoughts. So here he was, tossing a ball up and down, incapable of stopping himself from remembering and feeling the last few minutes of his deployment over and over again.

The ball slipped through his fingers, bouncing off his cheekbone across the room and under a table. It might have well been in Germany, it was way too far for him to put effort into retrieving, especially considering how little it was helping him. No longer occupied, his hands fell across his face, grinding his eyeballs with the palms of his hand.

He was the survivor, he was the winner, so why was he did he see that guy everywhere? Which guy? _The_ guy. The guy who he fought in hand to hand combat, the guy who he burned with the barrel of his weapon, the guy who ripped the remnants of his leg off, and the guy whose face he saw contort as he pumped his chest with 5.56mm bullets. The guy whose face he saw in anyone who even remotely resembled the man he fought. The guy whose face haunted his dreams. The guy who he couldn't forget. That guy.

He had thought about telling Astrid about it, but she was way more messed up than he was. He had never seen someone so strong sink so low. He couldn't even imagine how she was feeling. He felt like shit and was hiding it as best as he could; she was so much stronger than he was and had been broken. What agony she had felt. So for her sake, he'd suffer silently. If anyone deserved having a stable rock to lean on when needed it was Astrid, God knows she'd done the same for the whole platoon countless times. How the hell could he just turn around and say 'sorry, but I'm too absorbed in my own problems to help you' after all she had done? Well, he wasn't going to.

He'd almost let the cat out of the bag once, too. He and Astrid had been sitting in the cafeteria having a grand ol' time, chit chatting about whatever the hell they wanted. In walked some dude who had a very similar facial structure to The Guy. At that point, the involuntary part of his brain reared its ugly head. His heart started pounding in his chest, he started breathing heavily, his appetite evaporated, and he broke out in a sweat. Astrid had noticed that he wasn't looking to good, either. She poked him rather harshly, noting that he wasn't looking at her, and asked him if he was ok. He quickly—perhaps too quickly—waved her off and said he was fine. It took him a few minutes to get his heartrate back to a normal level. He wasn't sure that he had convinced her that he was totally A-okay, but at least it was better than the alternative.

His phone chimed in his pocket. He brought his hands down as he contorted his body so he could reach inside his stupidly designed pockets. He pulled the rectangular device out, returning bits of lint and string to his pocket at the same time. The soft light lit up his hands as he flicked the screen on, scanning the notifications. His email icon had now had a small, white 'one' in its upper right corner. He tapped the icon, waiting impatiently for the stupid phone to load. Eventually the contents of his inbox opened up on the screen.

 **[Unread] COL Steve Haddock: Coming to town soon, thought I'd drop by**

Henry scowled angrily at his phone.

"What's the matter?" Henry glanced up from his phone, surprised he hadn't heard his visitor open the door. He jumped when he realized Astrid was standing next to him. Damn she was quiet, how'd she do that?

"Oh, nothing," He growled, tapping the power button on his screen. As the phone blackened, he stuffed it back in his pocket, out of sight and mind.

"That didn't sound like nothing." Astrid's raised eyebrow gave away her noticeable skepticism. He glanced up at her, for a split second. Her gaze was unwavering as she stared him down.

"Fine, it was my Dad."

"Oh, what's up with him?"

"Nothing."

"Uh huh." Astrid was not convinced, and her tone of voice conveyed that perfectly. You had to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Astrid.

"I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind." Astrid hopped up on his bed, spinning 180 in the air to land butt-first.

"Can we talk about something then? I'm talk about something that we haven't already talked about." Henry chuckled at that.

"You're bored too, I take it?"

"I'm basically in The Void," she confessed, flopping onto her back in order to stare at the ceiling more intently. Maybe there was something up there to talk about.

"Yeah, I feel you. I've been considering making a new classification to properly describe being this bored."

"It's fairly unrelenting," Astrid admitted.

"I've thought about going to a movie or something, but I'm still fairly immobile. Plus I doubt the hospital really wants me to just walk out the front door and come back when I feel like it."

"Yeah," Astrid laughed. "I imagine they wouldn't like that very much."

"There's a break room for the nurses, right? That should have some movies, or at least a TV."

"Yeah, but that's for nurses only. We'd have to look like nurses to get in there." Astrid jerked her head off of the mattress, turning slowly towards Henry. Her infectious smile encroached on her features as a plan began to form in her head.

"What?" Henry stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on in that labyrinthine brain of hers.

"I have an idea."

"Uh oh, you weren't thinking again, were you? Remember last time you tried thinking? We ended up on cleanup details for a _week_." Ignoring what Henry had said, Astrid began to lay out the framework of her plan.

"What if we looked like nurses to get in? We are scouts, we're good at camouflaging ourselves and being sneaky and stealthy. We could get in there, lock them out, and then use the room for our own entertainment!" Having literally nothing better to do, Henry agreed to this cockamamie scheme that was assuredly going to get them in trouble. But he and Astrid were being med-boarded out, what could they possibly do in retaliation?

"How are we going to hide my leg?" Henry asked after a few seconds of deliberation.

"Trust me."

Minutes later, the two emerged from Henry's room, focused on part one of their escapade: finding a wheelchair. The duo slunk through the hallways, always falling a few steps behind groups of people in their attempt to avoid being noticed. It's not that the two of them walking in the halls together would have garnered any attention but it was the notion that Big Brother was after them that made it a bit more exciting. Also they were trying to take advantage of any possible opportunity for fun, and being sneaky beavers when you don't have to be is more fun than just walking.

Astrid spotted her prey, a dark blue wheelchair, folded up by a reception desk. She lightly pushed Henry towards the wall, where he stood silently like he was actually interested in reading the various posters that warned of imminent catastrophes if you don't wash your hands every time you touch a doorknob. Or someone else. Or a plant. Or any object that hasn't been sterilized in the last 24 hours. Did you know that other society has _germs_? It was like these posters were written by a germophobe.

Astrid glanced at her target every few seconds, continually scanning the people for threats who might try to swoop in and take her goal. She deftly moved through the congregation of nurses and patients who crowded around the desk, talking about a variety of health-related topics. She bent her body to the left slightly, avoiding the flailing arms of a nurse who was trying to explain a medical procedure with unreserved movement. She smirked for a second, reminded a bit of Henry who also tended to use grandiose gestures in everyday conversation.

She grabbed fabric, metal, and wheels contraption from where it stood, directly next to the desk. Astrid lifted it slightly to avoid the wheels making noise as she retreated. She didn't dare look over her shoulder. As long as she didn't turn around, she could imagine that nobody saw her heist.

Henry still stood where she had left him, standing by the posters on the side of the hall. He looked like he was staring intently at the text on the posters, but she could tell by the way his eyeball was flicking around he was in fact watching everything except the oversized warning labels. She set the wheelchair down, patting the cloth seat lightly.

"Sit down, Stumpy," she directed. Henry looked at her with mock anger, before grinning and complying. The two stashed his crutches behind the reception desk before continuing their escapade.

It took them longer than she had expected to find the nurse locker room. It seemed like it should have been obvious and easy to find. In reality, they had gone through a dozen hallways before they found anything that remotely resembled a locker room. And even then, it turned out that the janitor's closet was not the nurse locker room. Another two dozen hallways later, they saw a pack of nurses emerge from the same room.

The two waited patiently for their next target to appear. They hid just out of sight, positioning themselves far enough away from the nearest corner to the locker room so that they could see anyone approaching while staying relatively hidden themselves. The two didn't speak, as each of them watched different angles. Henry watched their flank while Astrid was on the lookout for their target. It's not that they were in any real danger, but this way just seemed more fun. After a half hour of patient waiting, Astrid finally spotted the orderly. She grabbed the back of his wheelchair and hurtled into the hallway at breakneck speeds.

"Wee—look out!" She cried, careening towards the orderly and the cart he pushed.

"Jesus Christ!" Henry shouted, holding onto the handles with a white knuckle grip. A second later, they slammed the corner of the wheelchair into orderly's cart, sending its contents flying to the ground. Astrid's hands flew to her mouth in faux surprise.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!"

"What the hell is your problem, lady?" The man said crossly at her.

"I'm so sorry I was just trying to take him for a spin and have some fun with him see he's been cooped up inside the hospital for a very very long time and he has been just sitting on his bed doing nothing at all so I thought I'd race him around the hallways to try to get him to at least see some new sights since he lost his leg and the recovery has been very hard on him I thought it'd be best if someone he knew was there to help—" Astrid would have kept rattling off her nonstop 'I'm a frazzled girly-girl' voice had the man not held up a hand to stop her.

"Ok, ok. I get it. Just… try to slow down next time. And help me pick these up, will you?"

"Oh, of course!" Astrid said in a relieved—but still slightly stressed—tone of voice. She bent down, grabbing some of the scrubs that had fallen to the ground, replacing them back on the cart. She suddenly stood up, scrubs in either hand, loudly proclaiming, "Oh wait!" The orderly looked up.

"What?" Astrid paid him no mind, spinning on a foot to face Henry.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, you didn't. I'm fine. Barely."

"Oh thank goodness!" Astrid turned back around, reaching down to grab a pair of scrubs. The orderly's cart of was quickly piled high with the clothes. Astrid and the orderly stood up after their task was done, staring at each other awkwardly for a second.

"Ok, well, thanks for picking those up. And slow down, ya hear?" The man switched his tone from appreciative to threatening.

"Yup!" Astrid yelped, grabbing the handles on Henry's chair, pushing him quickly—but not too quickly—away. The two rounded the nearest corner and burst out laughing.

"Oh man, Astrid, it was everything I could do to not bust a gut back there. That was spectacular acting!" Astrid feigned a curtsy, giggling the whole time.

"Thanks, you did a great job of pretending to be afraid of your life right before we hit!"

"Oh, that was no acting, I assure you," he waggled his finger at her accusingly. "When you said we would knock over a cart carrying scrubs I thought you meant 'knock over,' not 'ram at light speed."

"Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to." Astrid waved a hand in front of her face in a dismissing motion. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Yup!" Henry held up the pair of scrubs that she had passed him in their little encounter. "Now let's get your hospital ghillie on."

Astrid backed around the corner and out of sight, quickly throwing the scrubs over the clothes she had been currently wearing. She paused, glancing at her long sleeves. She scrunched them up slightly, as if she were about to be working with her hands to clean up bodily fluids or some other liquid that was the result of working in close proximity to the extremely sick.

She grabbed the back of Henry's wheelchair, pushing him back towards their goal. They took their time, checking their corners as they proceeded. Henry peered carefully around the corner, waving Astrid to keep pushing him. Finally, they arrived by their ultimate goal.

Astrid slowly moved her head around the corner an inch at a time, 'pieing' the corner so she could see in without being seen by the 'enemy.' She sucked her body backwards, a frown marring her face.

"There are four or five people in there," she said disappointedly.

"We'll flush them out. Where's a flashbang when you need one?"

"I've got one in my duffel in my room." Astrid glanced down, noticing that he was looking up at her with a mixture of wonder, worship, adoration, and general new-found appreciation. "I don't actually have one." He looked like she had just crushed his soul.

"Ok, you can't just get my hopes up like that. That's just cruel."

"So, what can we do to get them out?" Henry shrugged.

"Fire alarm? Ouch! Domestic abuse!" His arm throbbed where she had socked him.

"I have an idea, don't run off," she said, smirking over her shoulder.

"Wow, you're hilarious, you know that?" This whole situation was such bullshit. She had so many jokes at the ready for his condition, and he had none for her. Usually he was the sarcastic, smart-mouthed guy but he was just drawing a blank. What could he do make a joke trading the term 'thick-headed' for 'metal-headed?' That was stupid. Maybe he could say something about her head being bulletproof? No, that was badass, not a joking insult. He couldn't think of a single good retort! This was such bullshit.

The door to the break room opened, the nurses nearly tripping over themselves in their haste to exit the break room. Nurses scattered to the winds as soon as they could, not actually running away, but doing the next best thing.

"Wow, that worked really well," Astrid said, suddenly by his side. He looked up at her in awe.

"How?" Astrid shrugged.

"I may have poked my head around the receptionist desk, convinced them I was from radiology, and warned them that the chief of medicine just ripped 'my' department apart for having people not being productive and warned them that he was coming this way." Henry offered a golf clap in appreciation.

"Ok, now roll me in," he eagerly leaned forward like he was bracing himself for a sudden acceleration.

The battle buddies entered the room, taking in the comparatively plush furniture with eager eyes. My God, a couch. How long had they wanted one of those in their rooms? The closest they'd come to having a couch was the wooden benches that dotted the hallways.

A coffee table sat a few feet in front of the couch, covered in a mess of magazines, ranging from medical and science journals to Popular Mechanics and People. Astrid bent down to pick up one of the magazines up, thumbing through the pages looking for any article that sparked her interest. Finding none, she conducted a quick mag change, and began looking for an entry that interested her.

Henry had got up out of his wheelchair and hopped over to what he was most interested in. It stood just a few feet off the wall, 65 inches of glossy black beauty. Just below the square beauty, he found a small table with a stack of movies, each waiting to be viewed. It was like Christmas.

"So Astrid, what do you want to watch? There's a few good options here."

"Like what?" she asked, not even bothering to look up from the magazine.

"Let's see," he searched through the pile, shifting some to the left and placing the better options on the right. "Ooh, this looks like a classic. Girls of Spider Island, released in 1962? Sounds like high-quality movie if you ask me. Thoughts?"

Astrid's look of disgust was all the answer he needed.

"Ok, fair enough. You don't like to watch and laugh at shitty movies. Well, I guess we can't watch The Wicker Man either, then."

"Do you have anything from this decade?"

"Wow, you really are a hater, aren't you? That rules out both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings."

"Well those would be—"

"Ah ah ah," Henry interrupted with an upheld index finger. "I'm on a mission now to satisfy your pickiness."

"That's one way to look at it. I prefer to think of it as having taste." Astrid saw the DVD box coming towards her at the corner of her eye, dodging at the last second.

"Oh, apparently you _do_ know how to duck. You should have done that, you know, earlier." Ha! Got her! Astrid rolled her eyes.

"Just pick a movie. Damn, I didn't realize it was this hard."

"Ok, here we go. Fury Road. You can't possibly have something against that, can you?" Henry looked at Astrid accusingly.

"Well I mean there were better movies that came out that year…"

"Too bad, don't care," Henry popped the movie in the disc tray, pressing play on the DVD player before he turned to go back to the couch.

"You know, I could have done that. It would have been easier for me." Henry dismissed it immediately as he hopped.

"Nonsense, I've gotten really good at jumping around. It's nothing to me, now. In fact I'm almost as mobile as I used to—" His sentence was cut off by a string of cursing harsh enough to put even the crustiest sailor to shame. He careened forward, pivoting at the intersection of his shin and the coffee table.

To her credit, Astrid did try to catch him. But 170 pounds of flying soldier is tough to stop even when you are bigger than the person you're trying to catch, and Astrid was not. Henry fell through her outstretched arms, bouncing off her body. While Astrid was thrown back against the couch, Henry found that is possible to hit a single coffee table a second time in one fall before thumping painfully against ground. Henry groaned something unintelligible about pain.

"Oh shit, my bad Henry, I should have caught you." Astrid bent over, offering him a hand getting up.

"No, I'm the idiot." He accepted her help gratefully, pulling himself up onto the couch. He collapsed into the cushions with a heavy sigh. "I just keep forgetting that I'm a cripple." He looked down at his missing leg with a bitter expression. Astrid suddenly felt _horrible_.

"Hey, I didn't know that it was affecting you that much, I wasn't trying to be mean."

"No, you were fine. Most of the time it doesn't really bother me. But then I try to do something that I should be able to do and I can't, and it just gets to me. Sometimes. Not all the time, but damn." Astrid looked him over. He looked devastated and frustrated at the same time. She had it easy. Her injury wasn't stopping her from doing anything, where she could only imagine how much it sucked to go from day to day realizing that one stupid mistake meant that you had to completely change your life goals because you just physically couldn't do them anymore. One stupid mistake. One stupid mistake that she made. She did this to him.

Astrid stole another glance at him, staring glumly at his blunted appendage. What was her punishment? Nightmares, that was it. He had to deal with the fact that she couldn't perform when it mattered most for the rest of his life. She wished she could do something to make him feel better. He just looked… crushed that he wasn't the same anymore. He wasn't normal, and he never would be again. And it was her fault.

Henry kept trying to do what the shrinks were telling him, to think positively but whenever he screwed something up he couldn't help it. Everything was bullshit. What did he do to deserve this? All he ever did was work hard and try to help people out, now here he was. Maybe if he hadn't worked as hard, he wouldn't have been in the unit he was. Wasn't that some irony? His own success had led him to being permanently handicapped.

A hand suddenly reached across his face, pulling his face ninety degrees to the left. His surprise compounded when he felt Astrid's lips land on his. He locked up in surprise. Was she… kissing him? She definitely was. What was the right response? Should he kiss her back? Should he pull away? Was she going to punch him after this if he kissed back? Ah, screw it. She initiated, right?

Astrid was kinda surprised that she felt some pressure pushing back at her. Oh man, this was so wrong. They were platoon mates and great friends, but that's it. I mean sure this was fun and all, and it's not like occasionally she didn't hadn't snuck a glance at his nice ass, but that was different. She pulled back, breaking their kiss. The two locked eyes for a second, before turning their attention to the death machines racing across the desert of Australia on the screen.

Astrid smacked herself mentally. Holy shit she was dumb. She could see in his eyes that he was really confused about the kiss. Congratulations, she had successfully gotten his mind off his leg and in the same moment completely ruined a friendship. Fantastic. The last member of her family now probably thought she was a weird, crazy, psycho bitch. Awesome. It turns out, she was a stupid, impulsive asshole just like—

No. She wasn't going to think about that, she refused to even give him the satisfaction of plaguing her thoughts, even after all these years. Still, the thought stuck to the back of her mind like cancer, tainting her thoughts with every second it persisted. Hot tears welled in her eyes, a testament to her intense self-hatred. She forced them to stay in her eyes through willpower alone; there was no way in hell she was going to let Henry see her cry now.

Henry's mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, 90% of them a variation of 'what the hell just happened?' No matter how hard he wracked his brain, he couldn't think of anything that fully explained what had just happened. Astrid obviously regretted it though, he could tell by the tears in her eyes.

Damn, he was stupid. He shouldn't have kissed back. Now he was to blame for their crumbling friendship. Here he was, supposedly a rock for his friend to cry on while she was struggling through her PTSD, and now he turned out to be the least supportive friend in the whole world. All he had to do was look at her to see how messed up she was, and he still let his damn testosterone get in the way. Idiot.

Henry glanced at Astrid again, who was staring intently at the screen. Wow, he was such a bad friend. Maybe if they never mentioned it again, they could salvage their friendship.

A/N: Sorta unrelated, but while writing this chapter I ran into a dude at the gym who was missing his left leg from the thigh down, and he was pumping some serious weight. The dude was seriously jacked, it was damn motivating.


	7. The Discussion

this chapter.

Guest 2: Hey, thanks. I'm glad you're getting a glimpse at what vets go through, that's kinda part of why I'm writing it. There are a few perspectives on life that are generally exclusive to military service, and I hope I can explain why some vets act the way they do.

"So, how are you feeling?" Astrid sighed, pondering the therapist's question. She had been to this same room a hundred thousand times, it seemed like. Sometimes it had been joint sessions with her and Henry, and sometimes they came individually. This was one of the few times she was glad she was going solo.

She used to find comfort in routine, some sense of regularity. That had been before her final patrol, though. At that point in her life, everything was crazily irregular. What they had driven past a dozen times now could have an IED hidden just underneath the surface of the road, and a perfectly nice villager you bought chickens from last week could dump thirty 7.62 rounds in your direction this week after being promised a payment of five dollars. In that realm of utter chaos, any sense of normalcy was welcome. Here, however the routine felt stifling. Maybe it was culture shock of going from combat to this regimented schedule that she currently lived that made it almost unbearable, or maybe it was that she just genuinely enjoyed adrenaline rush of combat more than the safety of the hospital. Wasn't that a terrifying thought?

Take this room, for example. In the innumerable times she'd been here, she'd memorized every aspect of the room. Open the door, walk two paces in, turn right, take another pace and sit down on the right side of the couch. The bland white walls in front of her would still be the same pristine white color that it had always been. The whiteness would only be marred by degrees hanging in frames, a few plaques, and an assortment of medical posters covering a few different topics related to the brain and nerve activity. The therapist's pine desk would always be neatly arranged, with three pencils and two pens sticking out of a shiny black mug with the outline of a brain printed on the exterior. The room always smelled the same, too. It wasn't the same sterilized smell of the rest of the hospital, it smelled slightly of books, probably due to the large bookcase that encompassed two of the walls in the room itself. Now downrange, knowing experiencing those same stimuli in her barracks had been a comfort. She knew what she was coming home to after each trip outside of the wire and it gave her a sense of peace. Here however, where nothing ever changed, it felt slightly oppressive. A slight rustle of papers from the therapist's clipboard drew her back out of her thoughts, demanding a response.

"Fine, I guess."

"You took a long time to come up with 'fine,' Specialist Hofferson."

"So?"

"So what where you weighing to determine that everything balanced out as 'fine?'"

"Nothing really. My life is pretty uneventful, nowadays." The therapist scribbled some notes down on his clipboard, glancing up every other word or so.

"What do you mean by uneventful?"

"Is this a trick question? It means nothing interesting has happened."

"Since the incident?"

"Since the incident," she agreed with a tone of resignation.

"Nothing even remotely unusual happened since I last saw you on…" he paused as he flipped back a page. "Friday, right before the weekend started? Nothing at all out of the ordinary?"

"Nope," Astrid said a bit too hurriedly. "Everything has been really pretty much the same. No change. None at all." The therapist tapped at the clipboard with his pen, thinking hard about what she had said and how she had said it. He decided to switch gears, trying a different strategy.

"How's your head doing? Still hurt?"

"Yeah, a bit. Not as bad as it used to, not by a long shot," Astrid subconsciously touched the still-healing scar. After the metal plate had been placed and the risk of infection gone, she had skin grafts placed on top, and those were still healing. They were damn itchy, too. The only plus right now was that since the injury had happened about a month ago, she was starting to get hair on the side of her head again, which was a nice change.

"Still taking medications?"

"Yeah, taking the pills right after breakfast every day. I'm not exactly sure what they do, but I'm still taking them."

"Headaches?" Astrid frowned.

"Still get them, but they're not as bad. No more migraines at least," she said with half of a laugh at most. The therapist's pen scratched away at his notepad.

"Nightmares?"

"How is that relevant?" The therapist stopped writing, looking over his notepad at Astrid, an eyebrow raised critically. She relented with a sigh. "No change. At least three times a week, always on the same subject." Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"They're still about blaming yourself?"

"Yup." There was a sharp bitterness in the way she popped the 'p.'

"Even though you know that it wasn't your fault."

"Sorta."

"You 'sorta' know it wasn't your fault?" The therapist gave her a puzzled look. Astrid shrugged in response.

"I mean I guess I know that I couldn't have saved them if I hadn't broke contact the first time, but I'm not convinced that had I set up my position further down the road that I wouldn't have been able to provide enough of a warning."

"I guess that's some progress," the therapist mumbled. "So to summarize, you're still in pain, still have headaches, still have nightmares, and still think that everything is your fault? And you say that everything is 'fine?'" Astrid shrugged, raising her hands up to her shoulders, palms upwards in a 'what do you want from me' motion.

"Welcome to the new normal." The therapist flipped through his notes, tapping one of the pages with his index finger.

"Have you talked to Henry much about this? You have always seemed close. In fact, I think your biggest breakthrough came after a discussion you two had." Astrid groaned, concealing her face in her hands. "…or maybe not," the therapist continued in a confused tone of voice.

"Remember how I said I ever since," Astrid paused, her voice hitching on her words. "Well I just tend to mess things up now?" The therapist thumbed through the papers again.

"Yes, you've said it multiple times. I even have it noted here, 'patient shows remarkable self-doubt.'"

"That's one way to describe it," Astrid said with a laugh. "Well, guess what, I messed something up again."

"What happened?" The therapist flipped to a fresh sheet of paper.

"I just confirmed that I'm a moron," Astrid groaned. The therapist seemed unhappy with her answer, so she backed up and started over. She began at the beginning of the day, and how things seemed to be going super well. She talked about their plan and how they put it into action, even going into detail into some of their less honest methods of achieving their goal. The therapist looked amused, but said nothing.

She talked about how they had finally reached their goal and how she had paid attention to the stupid magazines instead of walking across the room and choosing a movie, since she could actually _walk_. She described the sinking feeling in her gut when she heard the 'thunk' of his shin against the coffee table. She recalled how she tried to stop the fall, but how she only served to launch him against the coffee table a painful, second time.

She told him about how every time she thinks about forgiving herself, she sees him trip, fall, or do something that he would normally have never done if he still had both legs. She used to be the most successful person in whatever room she was in, working harder and better than anyone else. Now, she was the queen of failure, and she proved it by screwing up her friendship with the only person left in her family. Why? Didn't she just say that she was a moron?

Oh, how? How did she do that? Well, she saw how miserable he looked. She could see the frustration in his eyes. Frustration at his leg, at his own lack of ability. Just like her, he had been a hard worker, they all had. But now, thanks to her, he couldn't do what he normally could. And the way she saw it, since it was her fault he was stuck in this funk, she should be the one to fix it. So she kissed him. The therapist jerked his head up from his writing.

"You did what?"

"I know, I know," Astrid groaned into her hands. "I'm an idiot."

"And you did that to distract him from his leg?"

"That's what I said," her voice was slightly muffled from pressing her hands into her face.

"Why was that your first reaction to him feeling poorly?" She raised her head slightly.

"I dunno, I guess I just wasn't thinking clearly at the time. Because I'm an idiot."

"And are you sure that his distraction was your only motivator?"

"Yes, why?" She asked, slightly with a slightly cross expression.

"Well it seems strange that in a room with a lot of entertainment already available in the forms of movies, magazines, and presumably other reading material, you chose a very physical method to pull him out of his mental state."

"What are you saying?" The therapist cleared his throat slightly.

"Many people find…" he paused, trying to find the correct word. "companionship to be very helpful in their recovery after a traumatic experience." Astrid blanched. Somehow the way the therapist danced around the topic seemed more horrifying than actually just blatantly discussing it.

"You think I to get with Henry?" Her voice raised an octave is she fully processed what he was insinuating.

"It would seem like an obvious choice," the therapist continued, blushing slightly as he focused intently on not looking Astrid in the eyes. "You two already have a pre-existing relationship, and based on an evolutionary perspective he's an extremely healthy young man who—"

"Just stop," she said exasperatedly. "I don't think about Henry in that way at all! He's basically family!"

"But he's not family. He's a soldier from your platoon."

"Right, and my platoon was basically my family," she insisted. "Especially Henry. I mean yeah, he's pretty cut. And yeah, we have a pre-existing relationship, but if we were to be _companions_ then I'd utterly destroy—" Astrid paused, realizing that she'd just implied that she had given thought to that as a possibility. A very remote, but pretty awesome possibility.

Oh shit, she actually did like the idea of them being together.

Astrid heard the therapist say something about 'see you next time,' but she was in too much of a hurry to escape. The normalness of their conversation had quickly degraded to wreak havoc on what the she had established as routine. However, this wasn't the kind of chaos she had so craved.

Henry grunted as he lowered himself once again. He used to be able to do this with no problem. He used to do this all the time! Hell, he used to consider himself the king of squats. But now here he was, with little to no weight on the bar, and it hurt like hell. His left leg burned for forgiveness. How long had it been since he'd last done these? Surely it hadn't been that long. Obviously he hadn't done them since the last patrol, but when had he last done them before that? With a weighted bar, it had been a while. But he'd done a lot of rucking, which is kinda similar. At least it feels that way when every few hundred yards you have to stop and take a knee when their navigator needed to stop and figure out where to go next.

More likely, it was just his injury that was being so painful. His muscles had seemingly locked into place—probably because of the trauma—and didn't really want to move again. It seemed like every single point of pressure on his leg hurt was like a bed of needles, digging painfully into his skin. Thank God he only had his shin and below obliterated, he couldn't imagine how much worse this would have been had he been hit in his femur.

Though admittedly, it was nice to be standing up on his own power again. After spending the last week or so doing gait training, trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to get his muscles moving properly again, he had been fit with his first set of prosthetics. So now he was part man, part machine. Maybe if there was a machine uprising he'd be able to convince them that he was on their side since he was 'rejected by his own species for being mechanical' or something. Regardless, he was just glad to have two feet, even if they weren't biological.

It seemed like that it should have been easy for him to balance again, but he was damned if it wasn't harder than he remembered. Maybe it was because he couldn't feel part of himself anymore, or maybe his artificial portion was heavier than he remembered his organic part being, or maybe it was just his brain not adapting to the lack of control it had over the metal and plastic that was attached to his body. Regardless, he knew that he was supposed to be putting equal weight on each foot, but he found himself heavily favoring his all-natural side.

Down. Up. Pain.

Down. Up. Pain.

He re-racked the bar, in all of its 95-pound glory. Yup, he was struggling mightily with 95 pounds. He used to get well over 225 for a set of five, but now here he was back at the bottom. How the mighty have fallen.

Henry leaned up against the squat rack, reaching down to fidget with his metallic leg. The prosthetic rubbed against his skin in ways he wasn't expecting. It was supposed to be this frictionless fastener, but it obviously didn't work. More than likely, it was just the fact that every single tiny movement he made would cause a tiny bit of friction in the same few spots, and eventually he'd build up either callouses or a tolerance for that kind of movement. Until then, he'd just cope with this rudimentary chunk attached just below his knee. This initial leg he got was apparently an early-level prosthetic with only the one pivot point at the ankle in only the forward/backward direction. Supposedly he would be able to get something more advanced at some point, but for now he was stuck with this simple design. Maybe it was that stiffness in his joints that gave him the extra friction, maybe he was used to being able to bend ankle in any direction he needed, and that was the cause of the friction. It didn't matter anyway, he couldn't change it at the moment. He just had to suck it up and drive on.

He pulled the weights off the bar, placing them back on the rack. He paused as he was about to leave the rack, kicking the corner of the rack. His shin impacted the metal framework with a metallic clang. He could feel the jolt of the impact, but the complete lack of pain was strange. It hadn't really set into his brain yet that he now had a prosthetic. What a strange feeling it was.

He left the training room, heading back through the 'examination' room. It technically was where you were evaluated daily for physical therapy, but it wasn't a typical doctor's office. It was a single bay that had two rows of tables that the therapists bounced between, helping as many people as they could in a day. Henry limped slightly towards his therapist, both from pain in his leg and from the unnatural walk he now had. With a quick conversation, he let the therapist know that he was done for the day and heading back to his room. The therapist nodded, and told him a few stretches to do, and then went to help another injured soldier.

With a lot of help from the wall low-level objects, Henry made it back to his room. His leg officially ached as he flopped backwards onto his bed, thanking whatever god was listening that he had been moved into the recovery/injury rehabilitation barracks. While it wasn't much, just having a non-communal bedroom was a huge plus. It meant he could be a lazy piece of shit without anyone judging him, and right now that meant lying on his bed when he should be showering. He could just lay back and let his muscles throb and no one could tell him that he was wrong.

After a few minutes laying on his bed and being consumed with self-pity, he finally forced himself up and over towards the shower. He dropped his leg with a clang by the side of his bed, hopping towards the bathroom. He spun his shower chair around, leaning up against the back of the chair with one hand while his other fiddled with the water. Upon reaching the perfect, almost scalding temperature, he plopped down onto the chair, letting the water rush over his body.

Oh man, how he'd needed this. He braced his body so the water struck him fully in the head and shoulders before running down his body in predictable streams. His long hair clung to his head with a weird sensation, clumps of it sticking together causing mini waterfalls to stream off his head at the edges of his vision. He couldn't recall the last time he had his hair this long, and it was a wholly different sensation than he was used to. In fact, it was a bit annoying. He was considering getting the sides cut, or at least around the ears. The light rubbing of his hair on his ears was starting to annoy him, though he'd probably get used to it if he let it go another month. However, he could just solve the problem by getting his hair cut, so he'd probably try to do that soonish.

It was weird the number of things that would change to adapt to his now civilian life. His haircut for example, was just one thing that could change. He didn't have to change his haircut, but he would feel weird being the only person in the room with a high and tight. That being said, he'd be the only person in the room with one leg, too.

That was the strange thing about coming out of one of the combat arms units and trying to go straight into the civilian world. For him, he'd always have his leg that separated him from the people who had spent their whole time in the 'civvie' world. He'd always hoped that when it came time to leave the Army he'd be able to blend back into the world he'd left like he'd never been gone, but that dream was gone. Now every room he'd go into he'd be immediately labeled as 'The Veteran,' who would just be treated one of two ways: he'd either get special treatment for his service (either in the form of praise for bravery or abuse for being a baby-killer), or people would walk on eggshells around him in order to not upset the 'disturbed vet.' None of those options were good, he'd always wanted to just going back to being Henry.

That's one reason why he really liked hanging out with Astrid, she just saw him as him. She didn't need to be anxious around him, she didn't need to treat him like he was any different. She saw a person, not a wounded soldier, and that's exactly what he wanted.

Oh God, Astrid. That whole situation was awkward as hell. Where had that kiss come from, anyway? Though the real question was, would that be happening again? He was a guy, he thought about sex all the time. He tried did his very best not to think about Astrid, but she was pretty hot when she was out of uniform. ACUs weren't exactly a flattering piece of clothing, but the times when they platoon had gone on out for the hell of it and everyone got dressed up she'd turned a few heads.

And here she was, coming at him with a kiss. It's not like he didn't think she was the toughest, hottest person in the world already, but he had a track record with being an idiot around women, especially women who he liked. For now, he hadn't acted like too much a fool around Astrid, they'd gotten along fine. And now, he probably was going to do something stupid and mess it all up.

But she kissed him first, right? So that means it was his turn to pursue her? She made move A, he's makes move B. That's how chess works, so is that how women work too? This was way too much for him to think about at the moment, and especially in the shower. He'd figure out all of this stuff at a later date and when he was fully clothed.

Henry reached over reluctantly, stopping the flow of water with a flick of his wrist. That water had felt so good, but he unfortunately couldn't sit under the water for the rest of the day. At least, he wasn't supposed to. Technically he wasn't paying for the water, so it didn't really matter, but he still felt like he was being wasteful if he just stayed stagnant.

He slowly rose up, carefully holding onto both the chair and whatever he could get his hands onto, half sliding half hopping out of the bathroom. He'd had one too many falls on the tile floor as it was, and he was trying to take it slow. He finally made his way back to his bed so he could sit down on the edge and try to will his clothes to fly onto his body. After being unable to master the art of telekinesis, he hobbled over to the dresser to begin his search for clean clothes.

Why had the kiss happened now? If she had felt something for him, why wait until when they were in the hospital to show it? Actually, it was kinda obvious. If she felt anything, they had always been constrained by Army rules and regulations. Plus, there were all those things briefings about sexual harassment and while it certainly has its place, it makes it really easy for something that is intended to be flirtatious to get you in a lot of trouble. Henry was distracted from his internal discussion as he tugged a pair of blue jeans on over his legs.

But why then? Why that point in time? Was it because they were all alone? They had been alone together plenty of times before that, and she hadn't made a move any of the other times. Could it possibly be that she had to work up the nerve to make a move? Henry frowned.

This was all making the huge assumption that Astrid was actually into him, which is a huge leap of faith. It's not like he was unwelcome to the idea, God knows that he had been hiding his own secret crush on her for forever. He liked to think that he had pretty much worked through it, and after spending countless nights in the field huddled together for warmth or relying on each other in one of a hundred gunfights, he had been pretty sure he had. But that kiss seemed to pull it back out of him. It was frustrating, really. One act undoing almost three years of work to be a professional soldier. Just awesome. Henry pulled a smoky gray t-shirt over his head, smoothing it out across his chest by pulling down on the edge. What the hell was he going to do? His attention was distracted by three sharp knocks on the door.

"Come in." Stepping through the door was the most uncomfortable looking Astrid he had ever seen.

"'Sup Henry?"

"Oh not much, I was just thinking about y-" Shit. "How are you doing?" Astrid could almost see Henry's thought process grind to a halt.

"Oh, not much." Damn, she wasn't doing much better. The two stood on opposite sides of Henry's bed, neither looking at each other directly nor saying anything to fix the oppressive silence that was filling the room. It seemed like for every second that passed, the collective awkwardness in the room rose significantly. After nearly thirty seconds of nothing, Henry finally offered a way out.

"I'd offer you a chair to sit on, but the only one I have is wet from the shower."

"Oh I didn't mean to intrude in your personal time," Astrid said with a slightly embarrassed tone. It's not like she hadn't seen men naked many times before, but right now she was trying to discuss a sensitive topic and she did not need that mental image. God, this was so awkward, why was it so awkward? She came here to discuss something with Henry, and damnit she'd do it like a goddamn adult! "Ok, Henry, listen up," she started abruptly, sounding more like she was scolding him than having a discussion.

"Ok, listening." Henry unconsciously straightened his back.

"I wanted to talk to you about the kiss," she sounded a bit angry, but that was normal for Astrid. At least, it used to be. She used to be the high-strung, angry lady who you didn't mess with. Then after the patrol she had become super depressed with a bit of happiness every now and then. At least she was doing better, right? Since she was going back to her roots?

"I just wanted to be clear about what was going on. I wanted to explain what happened," Astrid started out. She had rehearsed what she wanted to say, but she was still struggling to find the right words. It was like all her rehearsals had suddenly been pushed to the back of her mind and she was starting from scratch.

"You see, I worked so hard to get us out of our stupid routine, day to day stuff and I didn't want to lose that. We had schemed and connived our way to get into that break room, and in an instant it looked like it had gone to waste when you tripped. I could see it in your eyes, in your demeanor. You were so focused on your leg that you were missing the good stuff that was happening around you, and it was the first thing I could think of to get you out of your funk. So yeah, that's why." Astrid finished her mini-speech, awaiting a response from her one-legged compatriot.

Henry was trying to figure out how exactly he felt. It was a mixture of anger, fear, and horror all at once. His facial expression changed slightly as he shifted between each of them every few seconds. All in all it took him maybe ten to fifteen seconds to respond. He felt like she had seen him in a moment of weakness and all the secrets he'd been trying to hide were laid bare in front of her. Like she'd taken advantage of this chink in his armor and taken everything thrust a knife into his very core. In the past month or so, all he'd been able to be was a pillar of strength for Astrid as she recovered, but now what was he? Just another soldier who'd been beaten down by the world, just a person who couldn't quite manage his injuries as well the rest. Astrid saw how weak he was and took pity on him. He could almost feel the inner strength that he'd been slowly accumulating shatter to the ground all around him.

"So you kissed me because I'm broken?" That was not the reaction Astrid had anticipated.

"Well, I—"

"No let me get this straight. According to you, you thought you could 'fix' me with a kiss. You thought you could make me happy by kissing me. You didn't kiss me because of any affection or something like that, no that'd make sense. That would be what a rational person would do. But no, no not you. You can't fix getting our platoon killed, so you thought 'the hell with it, I'll make up for it by fixing Henry with a kiss.' Well guess what, my legs still gone, are you going to kiss that, too? I still have nightmares, are you going to kiss me to make those go away? No? Tell me, Astrid, what are you going to do?" Astrid stared at him with shocked eyes.

"Wow, you really do blame me for what happened." Henry's anger dissipated as he realized what exactly he had just said.

"Wait, no, that's not what I—"

"No, fuck you." Astrid slowly backed towards the door. Goddamnit, she wasn't going to cry. "Seriously, fuck you." She blinked hard, trying to keep the tears from bursting the dam.

"Astrid, I'm sor—"

"Nope. Don't want to hear it. Please go fuck yourself… with a cactus." She opened the door behind her, stopping as she backed out of it. She twisted her head down and away, holding up a finger as if she was saying 'hold on a moment.' Damn it, she told herself that she wasn't going to cry before she left the room. She took four large steps forward almost at a sprint, launching her fist into Henry's abdomen before turning and leaving the room at a similarly rapid pace.

Henry coughed, trying in vain to get his breath back. He deserved that.

A/N: That story about the getting paid $5 to shoot a magazine at Americans is a true story. Dude walked up and unloaded a magazine at a friend of mine's Bradley. They didn't shoot the Iraqi, they subdued him and interrogated him (how they found out why he did it). In the end, they gave him $10 to never do it again and sent him on his way.

$5 to basically commit suicide (if you don't know how monumentally stupid his action is, google M2A3 Bradley and just imagine bullets bouncing off the outside harmlessly). It sounds like such a paltry sum, but for some people there that was a significant lump of cash


	8. Like Father, Like Son

A/N: So, this update is late. I've been trying to get them up on Friday for the last four updates (was late by one day last update, sue me.) However, I have a decently valid excuse. Last Wednesday I was finally told that I had to clear off post by next Friday. So I've been spending the days cleaning, packing, and clearing out of various places on post. I'll see what I can do to get the next one up this Friday, but no promises. Also, as a result of my expedited out-processing, the story is being similarly expedited, because I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have left to actually finish the story. This chapter I'm not super happy with, because it was originally going to be at least two chapters (particularly the last part which became a monologue was going to be its own chapter). As such, I think it would have had better pacing. But at least this way the story is being told, albeit not the way I wanted to, but it is what it is.

Responses to guests (Chp 7):

Guest 1: Appreciate it. Things will get figured out soonish.

Guest (Mia): Well, thanks, I hope you enjoy your stay.

"So tell me what happened," the therapist spoke in an even, soothing tone, which Henry felt was a bit more annoying than calming. He kinda wanted the therapist to be angry at him for being an idiot. He sighed in frustration.

"Where should I start?"

"At the beginning, please." The therapist clicked his pen, readying himself for a lengthy set of notes.

"Well, first there was a big bang that—"

"Specialist Haddock, I know you tend to revert to sarcasm whenever you're uncomfortable, but you'll really be much better off if you're just honest." Henry glanced around the room, looking for anything and everything that could possibly delay this talk. It's not that he didn't want to talk about it, but he just didn't know how to start it. What could he start with? 'Hey, this really hot girl kissed me and I found possibly the only way to screw it up?' What an idiot he'd look like. That being said, it was a pretty good summary of the situation—including his own idiocy.

"Well, about five days or so ago, Astrid and I were bored. Not the usual 'boy what should I do' bored, more along the lines of 'I've exhausted all possible means of fun' kind of bored." The therapist halted his writing hand momentarily.

"In my experience, there aren't any good stories that come out of this hospital that begin with the phrase 'I was bored.'" Henry chuckled.

"Maybe not, but it started off good. See, Astrid and I concocted this elaborate scheme to sneak into the nurse lounge nearby where we live. We were trying to draw upon our scout skills by blending into environment and generally being sneaky, and we did pretty good, too. Instead of blending into the natural terrain, we tried to blend into the people by looking like a nurse and her patient. We did that by—" Henry paused, looking at the therapist with a peculiar look in his eyes. "—procuring necessary items."

"There's always the doctor – patient confidentiality, Specialist Haddock. Nothing you say will leave these walls."

"We stole a wheelchair and a set of scrubs."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the wheelchair we just borrowed, and the scrubs we knocked over the dude who was carrying a bunch and swiped one while we were picking them up. I don't know if Astrid still has them." The therapist smirked, scratching a few more notes onto his paper.

"That's all it took to get into the lounge? Usually they don't want patients in there."

"Well, no. Astrid made a distraction."

"What kind of distraction?"

"Astrid may have convinced some of the nurses that a General was coming their way and that he probably wasn't going to look kindly on people not busy with their jobs. Theoretically, that is."

"Right of course," the therapist chuckled. "Theoretically."

"And then once the lounge was vacant, we just walked right in and set up to watch a movie."

"Just like that? Wait, if the lounge was vacant, why did you need a disguise?" Henry opened his mouth a second, snapping it shut a moment later.

"So that we could stay undetected from anyone who might have walked in on us," he said a second later, like he was trying to convince himself.

"And did anyone?"

"N-no. But if they had, we would they wouldn't have been any wiser."

"Ok, but back to what you were saying about what happened."

"Right, what happened," Henry echoed. He wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic about getting back to his original story. "Well, I got up out of the wheelchair and hopped over to pick a movie from the display rack of movies."

"And then what?"

"I'm getting there! Well, once I finally found something that we agreed on, I put in the movie and pressed play. Then on my way back, I tripped. In the process, I slammed my shin against the coffee table which caused me to go flying forward and into Astrid. I knocked her over and bounced back into the coffee table, and then onto the ground finally. Well, when I finally picked myself I was pretty pissed off."

"At Astrid?"

"What? God no, I was mad at myself. I've been a cripple for almost a month now and I can't even navigate four feet without help? I felt like an idiot."

"Why? Seems like a pretty reasonable mistake to make while recovering from the loss of a limb."

"Because I felt like… an invalid. Look at this ex-soldier who used to be able to walk, who used to be able to run, who used to be able to take care of himself and now is just—" Henry sighed, refocusing on the story he had been telling. "Anyways, after I proved myself to be unable to walk two feet, Astrid helped me stand back up. Well, I sat on the couch for a second and felt like shit."

"Because you felt like an invalid?" The therapist questioned, parroting his own words back at him.

"Yeah, pretty much. Well like I said I was miserable. So I'm sitting there on the couch, feeling really glum and out of freaking nowhere, Astrid leans over and kisses me. Not on the cheek either, full on lip contact. I was not expecting that."

"I probably wouldn't be expecting that either," the doctor confessed with a nod and a raised eyebrow. "What was your initial reacton?"

"Uh, shock? Confusion? I thought a lot about if I should kiss her back, which I eventually did do. However, it took me a few moments to figure out what I wanted to do. Not exactly what I had pictured the day to turn out. But by the time I really had an idea about what was happening and was starting to get into it, she pulled away. Which kinda sucks."

"So you were enjoying the kiss?"

"Hell yeah I was. Astrid is awesome. She's super confident and hot. She's basically everything I could ever want in a woman. And, she's a great kisser too, though that's something I just learned recently."

"So far, this all sounds like good news."

"Oh yeah, it's all great news. The next part is my personal favorite!"

"And what part is that?"

"The part where I reveal that I'm the most moronic human to walk the face of the earth, and should not be trusted with any sort of possibly romantic relationship." The therapist sighed.

"Please continue."

"So fast forward to yesterday. We'd been kinda avoiding each other over the last few days, neither of us really wanting to approach the subject. That's when she decided to show up at my room yesterday to tell me why she kissed me."

"And?" Henry sighed heavily, his shoulders dipping visibly with his self-frustrated look.

"She said that she did it because she saw how upset I was about my leg. And I responded in the worst possible way. I insinuated that it was her fault our platoon died," Henry cringed as he finished his sentence. The therapist broke from his usual detached manner of speaking.

"Why the hell did you do that?"

"Because I'm an idiot!" Henry's hands shot upwards to further emphasize exactly how much of an idiot he was.

"But why would you think that would be a good idea?"

"I wasn't thinking straight, I was just acting out of instinct?"

"You instinctually insult people who try to help you?"

"No, not really. Did you serve in the military?"

"No, I did not," the therapist replied, finally regaining his composure.

"In the military, we hold mental and physical toughness up on a pedestal, and those who can endure and overcome are held up more than all of the others. Those people are basically worshiped as gods amongst men, and their tales of might are passed down from soldier to soldier. Since 90% of downtime in the Army is spent telling tales, it shouldn't really come as a shock that everyone wants some of those tales told to new privates to be about them. Everyone has heard stories about soldiers who perform unheard of feats, both in and out of combat. Stories like getting confirmed kills with an MRE spoon and shielding your battle buddies with your own body as bullets rain down on you are always fun to tell, because it provides a sense of awe and it gives people something to strive for. You always want soldiers to want to fight the enemy with whatever they have available and to think of the unit before themselves. Those are all great things, and they generally help motivate people to give their best in everything they do so that they too can be immortalized in story."

"And that's all good, but what comes out of that is the fear of weakness," Henry continued. "The worst thing that can happen to a soldier is that they are considered the weak link. Those who get the label of being 'the weak link' are generally kind of shunned and considered outcasts. You don't really want to associate with That Guy who is always bringing the platoon down, even when it's not justified. For example, I knew a soldier who got permanent spinal nerve damage from their time in the Army. Because of that, they were on crutches and were unable to complete most of their daily tasks. And despite that they were medically unable to do certain things, and in all other areas was a top performer, they were generally thought of as being a 'second rate soldier.'" Henry readjusted the discussion back to the topic at hand.

"So when I heard Astrid say that she was trying to help me distract me from my legs, I heard that she thought I wasn't capable anymore. Not only that I proved that I wasn't capable of walking, but I also wasn't strong enough to fix my own thoughts, and it just hurt me more than I'd like to admit, especially coming from Astrid. She's kinda the only person who I… she's the best person I've... she's the one I… I don't know what honestly. I care about her more than anyone else, I trust her more than anyone else, she's the person whose opinion matters the most. And hearing that Astrid thought that I was that weak, I lashed out in anger."

"The general rule for the military is that when someone makes a comment that makes you look weak, you try to generally either make a joke about it and play it off, or whip back an insult that says 'yeah I may be weak, but at least I'm not as weak as you because of X, Y, or Z.' So in a moment of idiocy, I pulled the one card I knew that she was self-conscious about. Because in my stupid head, I reverted to 'if I make her realize she's weaker than me, then I'm no longer the weakest person.' And then once I said it, I realized exactly how big of a moron I was." Henry finished, almost breathless after his lengthy rant.

"I see." The therapist was sort of at a loss for words. Usually he would try to pry to figure out why his patient did a certain thing, but it was apparent that Specialist Haddock already knew why he did. Now he was trying to work damage control. If he could prevent him from hating himself for what he did, then he'd consider that a victory, at least for now.

"What do I do now, doc?"

"I'm assuming you tried to apologize already, right?"

"Yeah, I did. It didn't really go over well. She didn't exactly want to listen to anything I had to say. Even if she did accept it though, I'd still be feeling guilty though. I was a huge asshole for no reason."

"Well, beyond getting down on your knees and begging for forgiveness, I'm unsure what your next step should be."

"That's not super helpful."

"I'm not a marriage counselor, I'm a therapist." Henry sighed.

"Yeah, I knew that, but I was hoping your knowledge of the brain would help me out somehow."

"Sorry, all the advice I can give you in that regard is based purely off of what I have learned from my marriage."

"Well, we're not married first of all, but if you have any advice I'd be more than willing to hear it."

"Well, bribery for starters. I know what my wife likes, so when I really mess up I try to at least soften her mood with something I know she would appreciate. Doesn't always work, but it shows I'm at least trying."

"Yeah, well I don't think the hospital would want me to bring her a new pistol or something. But thanks for the idea, anyway."

"Anytime. Let me know how it goes,"

"Will do, doc. Thanks."

Astrid sat in the DFAC, glaring at her food. How the hell had her world collapsed in the span of just a day? She stabbed her crappy army-cooked steak with the dulled knife, skewering it with vigor that can only come from a simmering rage. The anger that burned in her was the kind that starts in your chest with a throbbing pulse of emotion that heightens every sense with pure adrenaline, bursts of hatred seeming to shoot from every pore, and culminating in an all-consuming, mind altering state of unadulterated fury.

Henry you son of a bitch.

They had been the closest of friends. She had literally trusted Henry with her life, and more significantly, her weaknesses. And what did he do? He turned it against her in the blink of an eye. Why the hell had he even done that? No matter, she wasn't going to open herself up to that kind of bullshit again. Not a chance in the world.

Damn, she had even started to think that there was a possibility for more. They'd always been close, and then the kiss happened, and she was beginning to hope that some good could come out of her blunder. Not anymore, though. That ship had sailed. In fact, it had sailed over the horizon with a huge flag emblazoned with a middle finger in black and white, then caught fire and sank to the depths with no survivors.

Her all-consuming anger fizzled, replaced with the bitter mingling of doubt and sadness. If Henry, who had known her so well and had fought alongside harbored such ill thoughts about her, what did everyone else think?

Man, everyone must have thought she was such a loser. She had no friends, all the close ones she had inadvertently killed. Her family was nowhere to be seen. She could tell the nurses and doctors were feigning interest. They had a billion patients come through these halls, why should she be any different than any of the others?

She could feel the looks of pity on her in the DFAC. Look at that poor girl who had nothing left. Isn't that a damn shame? Oh well, better go back to eating my shitty army food and continue not actually giving a shit about her, just like everyone else.

Damn, what she'd give for a drink right about now. She suddenly understood why her some of the sergeants were raging alcoholics. She just wanted to numb what she was feeling right now; she just wanted to forget for a few minutes. Please.

"Astrid?" The voice brought back the burning anger with a fiery passion.

"Go kill yourself, Henry," she snapped with a glare. Henry gulped, suddenly gaining a great appreciation for the phrase 'if looks could kill.'

"Can I sit down?" He looked slightly fearful for his life at the moment. Astrid grabbed the terrible, DFAC steak knife in firm grip, twisting it slightly to point the blade at his good leg.

"I'm already responsible for one leg, should I take the second?"

"Astrid, seriously."

"Oh, I am most definitely serious," she gestured with the steel dangerously.

"Please let me explain, Astrid."

"There's nothing to explain," Astrid said, returning the knife to her plate in order to cut off a large chunk of steak which she promptly thrust into her mouth. "You hold me responsible for the death of our platoon. So do I."

"No, I don't."

"Not according to you. Your words were pretty clear yesterday."

"But I didn't mean it, you have to let me explain."

"Pretty sure I don't," she said through her chewing.

"But you should. I didn't mean what I said. Let me explain why I said it." Astrid's eyes narrowed to mere slits.

"Do you take me for a fool?"

"The exact opposite, that's why you should listen. You'd understand what I'm trying to say if I could just talk for a bit." Astrid grabbed the knife, flipping it around so the handle was facing towards Henry.

"If you take this knife, shove it up your urethra and twist, and then I'll consider it"

"Astrid, please. I'm not even asking for you to talk, just listen to me. Even if we aren't friends afterwards, let me explain. I'd feel like I'd be doing the rest of our platoon a disservice if I didn't try to repair what was left." Astrid stared at him threw narrowed eyes, her lips pursed. She didn't respond for a few seconds while she considered her response.

"That's pretty low. I'll give you five minutes." Astrid turned her wrist towards her so she could watch the seconds tick by. "Starting now," she said, flicking the knife like a conductor just as the next minute started. Henry sat down, all his thoughts and arguments rushing to his head in a whirlwind. He had thirty different things to say at the same time, and he could only choose one at a time. How could he choose just one? Each approach had its pros and cons, he only hoped he was choosing method that Astrid would understand the best.

"See, I didn't mean it. It was something I said rashly because I was angry. You see earlier in the day I had been struggling with lightweight squats, and," Henry stumbled over his words, realizing he had just tried to start three different arguments at once. He backtracked, starting over.

"See, when you came into my room and said that you were trying to fix me, I thought that you meant—"

"Well what do we have here?" A large, barrel-chested man with the closest high-and-tight haircut Astrid had ever seen pulled up a chair at the table. Astrid couldn't help but notice the black eagle with outspread wings adorning the center of the man's chest as well as the scroll that adorned his left sleeve. "Colonel Steve Haddock," he said, shaking Astrid's hand with a firm but gentle handshake.

"Dad, what are you doing here?" Henry said, aghast.

"You know how hard it was to find you in here?" Col. Haddock said, turning towards Henry. "The nurses directed me to your room but you weren't there. It was a lucky coincidence that I happened to see you through the window."

"You're Henry's father?" Astrid said in surprise.

"That I am! I see you're already well acquainted with my boy," Col. Haddock leaned back in his chair with a large grin.

"Yes, sir. I am. I was." Col. Haddock either missed or ignored the daggers that Astrid shot at Henry.

"You must be Specialist Hofferson, the other warrior that made it out." Astrid frowned.

"That's one way of putting it." Henry grabbed his father's attention before he could do any more damage.

"Dad, what are you doing here? I was kind of in the middle of a conversation with Astrid."

"Yeah, but I thought I should stop by for some father-son bonding time. It's been so long since we've been able to hang out, I thought you might appreciate it."

"Now is not a good time," Henry said with a firm edge in his voice.

"Nonsense, there's no such thing as a bad time to spend time with your ol' man! It's not like the lass who cost you your leg is more important than your father. One of us brought you into the world, and the other brought part of you out of it!" Col. Haddock nudged Astrid with an elbow, trying to make sure that it was obvious he was joking.

Astrid's head looked like it was about to explode. Her whole face flushed, a vein pulsed on her forehead and every muscle in her neck shot outwards, pressing hard on the skin. She let an angry hiss pass through her lips as she locked eyes on Henry. Henry's eyes bulged in shock, as he gaped at his father.

"Dad!" Henry gasped.

"Wow, this makes so much sense," Astrid spat venomously. Astrid hurled her plate at Henry, covering him in an assortment of mushy veggies, chewy meat, and miscellaneous sauces. She jumped to her feet; her chair skittered backwards, finally toppling over a few feet from the table. Astrid stormed out of the room, a cloud of anger following her every step.

"Wow, she's wound up tight. I thought she would be able to take a simple joke," Henry's father said. "So anyways, now that she's gone, want to go do something, just you and I?"

"Shut up!" Henry nearly shouted, grabbing two fistfuls of his own hair. Col. Haddock was taken aback for a second.

"That's no way to talk to your father," he finally returned.

"No, that's a perfectly reasonable way to talk to a stranger who just burst into a conversation and ruined a very delicate situation! You had no idea what we were talking about or what the hell you just did!"

"Son—"

"No, please shut up. You destroyed your relationship with mom, you did the same with me. You were never there for either of us, and when you were there you were insufferable! And I thought that maybe if I joined the military and made you proud, then maybe you'd take time to care about me again, but apparently I was wrong. Because even when I was, you didn't show up for my graduation from basic training, or from anything. And when I get shot to hell, you still don't even show up! It took you a month and a half to show your face. Where the hell were you?" Henry stood up at the table, his rant not quite finished yet.

"So now, after all these years of not giving a shit, you decide to show up and ruin the chance I had to recover my relationship with Astrid? She actually thinks that she's the reason why the platoon was KIA and why I lost my leg. She genuinely believes that. I made a stupid comment and made it worse, which I was in the middle of apologizing for. Now, you show up and mess things up even more. In fact, whatever chance I had now gone. Thanks for that." Henry paused in his tirade to take a breath.

"Son—" Col. Haddock tried to start talking again, a sad resignation in his voice.

"No! Not done yet. You really messed things up. So please, just f…" Henry's voice trailed off. He shook his head in frustration. "Never mind, I'm done." He scrunched up his face in anger. Henry pushed away from the table, walking off in a huff.

Col. Haddock watched as Henry limped quickly away. His eyes were drawn to his left leg. He noticed how the fabric folded around the unnaturally narrow limb. With a sigh, he dropped his head into his hands. What had he done?

Astrid throttled the lamp that stood in the corner of the room. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite muster the strength to snap its spindly, metal neck in half. Of course this was going to happen. She hadn't really gone out searching for public validation of her failures, but they came to her anyways. Funny how just when you think life has kicked you the hardest it finds a way to curb-stomp you into submission.

Her grip slipped slightly, infuriating her just a bit more. She turned, slamming the lamp into the bed like a makeshift battle axe. Had the damn thing had a blade, she would have put it through the bed and embedded it deeply into the floor. She tried to regain her composure as she heard two knocks at the door. Apparently someone had heard her and was coming in to make sure she was ok.

"Enter," she said with a forced calm in her voice. She really didn't want to see the man who stood in the doorway.

"Can I come in?" Col Haddock said quietly.

"What the fuck do you want?" Astrid glanced down at the eagle on the man's chest. "…sir," she added at the end.

"I'm a horrible father," he began.

"Sir, get out of my room."

"If you please give me a chance to explain and apologize. Henry explained what was happening, I didn't know." How familiar this whole thing felt. Astrid really wanted to throw this guy out, but he was a full bird colonel. She did have to respect him, or pretend to. She opted to just say nothing and glare at him angrily hoping he'd take it upon himself to leave.

"I'll make it brief, I promise," he began. "I'm a horrible father. I love Henry, I really do, but I'm terrible at building a meaningful relationship with him. When he was born, my only thought was to do everything in my power to set him up for success. I wanted him to be smarter than me, stronger than me, and for him to not have to suffer through the same mistakes I made in life."

"So early on, I threw myself into my career. My rationale was 'if I can keep him safe, he'll be able to do achieve greatness without fear of harm.' And so I did everything I could to keep him and my wife Valery safe. I went to the toughest Army schools, became the best soldier I could be, and then I led even tougher soldiers into combat, and returned each time convinced that I was doing the best I could to protect them."

"The irony is that with every attempt to do right by my family I drove them further away. Every time I left to train, I was spending time with the Army instead of spending time with them. Every time I came back from deployment I would take my hyper-vigilance from the combat zone and turn it to protecting my family. Every attempt I made to keep them safe made Valery feel like I was trying to control them. When I obsessed about keeping the doors locked, Valery thought I was trying to order her around like she was a soldier. And so eventually after years of protecting my family, the woman I married was now a stranger. So much so that it didn't even register when we finally got a divorce, there was just nothing between us anymore."

"I tried to show Henry how I loved him by defending him, but I was never there enough for him to know any of that. Eventually, he joined the Army too. I had hoped to keep him out of the fighting, to keep him safe. However, I fully supported his decision to try to protect others, just like I had tried to protect him. But you know better than I what happened, and now he's here. So I thought to myself 'what an opportunity to regain the family that I lost,' and this was the result of that. I thought if I could go in and make light hearted jokes about everything, kinda like he does, I'd be able to show him that there's an actual person left in his father."

"The joke I made I thought 'this is so ridiculous, nobody would think this about a wounded hero' but apparently you actually thought it might have been your fault. Which is absurd, there's no way it was your fault, and I'm sorry if I reinforced that notion, because it's just not true."

"Anyways, I just wanted to say don't hold my failures as a father against my son. It was my failures that made me want to re-connect in the horrible way that I did. And not only did I cause a rift between you two, I severed all possibilities of having an actual family again, and I can't fix that."

"My son and I may share genetic traits of saying idiotic things, but he's a good man and a tough soldier. He's far tougher than I, there's no way I could have endured what you and he went through. If there's one thing I've learned in the Army it's that you don't become a tough person by not caring. Nobody wakes up and goes 'boy do I feel like I haven't suffered enough today.' Everyone who endures great suffering has something that they care about deeply to push them through. I know for a fact that he doesn't care about me, and it's obvious he cares about you a great deal. Of all the things I regret, I think I'd regret it the most if my actions disrupted that bond that the two of you have."

"Anyways, that's all I wanted to say. I'll be going now. If you see Henry, let him know I said goodbye and that I love him, will you? I'd tell him myself, but I don't want to mess up whatever tiny strands of good will he has left towards me by making myself into a bigger idiot." Astrid stood there silently, having watched the colonel intently through his whole spiel. Her jaw softened as she finally spoke.

"You should tell him yourself anyway."

"I don't think he wants to talk to me. Anyways, goodbye and goodnight. Thanks for listening, at least."

"No problem, sir."

Col. Haddock nodded, slowly shutting the door as he retreated.


	9. Second Chance

Henry sat in the dining facility, trying to calm the whirlwind of thoughts storming through his mind. He leaned forward, an elbow pressed into the tabletop with his forehead pressed against his palm. He drummed against his scalp with his middle finger in steady rhythm. He had been tapping the same spot on his head for about a half hour now and it was starting to feel a little sore, but he hadn't given thought to the slight discomfort on his head. At the moment, there wasn't much room in his head for thoughts that weren't related to the past few days.

Astrid. He was still reeling from what had happened in the past few days. It was all he could do to not relive the conversation over in his mind, both cringing at his own words and angry that he couldn't stop himself. In one fell swoop, he had undermined his most treasured relationship. What a colossal moro— no, no stop. Beating himself up day after day wasn't going to fix the problem. He either needed to man up and apologize or just move on with his life.

He sighed, his shoulders settling an inch or two closer to the ground. He had already tried to apologize, and that hadn't exactly gone according to plan. He was surprised he had been able to get Astrid to agree to listen to him, and he had just started the apology when his Dad had decided to show up and screw up everything.

His Dad had always been pretty terrible at being a parent, but he this had to take the cake. Dad had never been there when he had needed him, why did he have to start being there when he didn't need him? What kind of cruel joke is that? He should have stayed being that highly successful father figure who you could point to and say 'yeah that's my Dad' and have that be the most interaction he had with his father for the rest of the year. In fact, he'd gotten used to the lack of parenting he got from his father. In some ways, it made him a better person, made him more self-reliant.

So why did he pick this moment to re-insert himself into his life? Why now? Henry begrudgingly knew why now, though he didn't really want to say it out loud. It was convenient. Showing up right away after he was injured or being present during his successes and failures throughout his life would have really been a nuisance, he would have had to take time out of his busy work schedule to make time for his son. How awful would that have been, to maybe miss a formation or a meeting because your son was getting shot to hell in some godforsaken country?

Well now the roles were reversed. Instead of Henry being the nuisance, it was his father that was the problem. And now, his father had caused even more fuckery of an already delicate situation. How was he even supposed to go around fixing this kinda thing? He was surprised Astrid let him talk at her before. It wasn't exactly a conversation, so he couldn't really call it talking 'with' her, but she also hadn't left the room when he walked in. Now however, she was probably already filing a restraining order and buying one of those tazers that have three different charges in them. Theoretically you could shoot three people at the same time, but he was pretty sure she'd use all three on him if he tried to get closer than five meters.

Henry spent the next few moments wondering if it would be harder to get her to accept his apology or for him to build a time machine, in order to go back to an hour or two before the conversation just so that he could slap himself silly for even thinking about saying something stupid. Actually, he'd probably just go back before the patrol and say something like 'maybe we should take a different route.' Actually, that probably wouldn't work, so he'd just take a shitload of guns and ammo with him as he went back. Then, he'd hide in the rocks with all of the guns and unload on those damn militia before they could get up the hill. Actually if that was his plan, he might be able to convince Astrid to talk to him if he could go back and erase what happened. Man, everything would be so much easier with a time machine.

He had lost count of how many times he wished he knew what to do. He wished life was like a video game, where the next step in this quest line would pop into his head and there may or not be a path laid out before his feet telling him what exactly his next step should be. Step 1: Alienate closest friend, complete. Step 2: Make the situation worse with a botched apology, complete. Step 3: Buy flowers? Grovel on his knees? Bribe the nurses to lock her in a room with him so that he could apologize without her leaving in a huff? He had to at least give it another shot.

Of course he had to. If he tried, she would either reject it and him, or she would accept it and hopefully they could get back to a decent friendship. If he didn't try at all, he would be guaranteed to not fix the situation. So small chance of success versus no chance of success. Mathematically, doesn't that mean he was infinitely more likely to succeed if he tried again? Henry rose from his chair, and started wandering the halls in the general direction of Astrid's room. He wasn't in a hurry to get there, he still needed to figure out what he was going to say.

Astrid sat on a couch in the commons room, blindly ignoring all that happened around her. Her left arm was perched on the armrest, her right was draped behind the couch. She kept her eyes fixed on the TV that displayed CNN to all those that were sitting nearby. To anyone passing by, her fixated gaze and immobile body gave the impression that she was intently focused on the weather report. Had there been anyone there who knew her well, they would have been able to tell that she was lost in her own thoughts.

Astrid couldn't stop thinking about Colonel Haddock's spiel. She kept trying to reconcile his words with his actions… and with Henry's actions. She understood what Col Haddock had said, but at the same time she was struggling to connect the dots between what she had heard and what she had observed. Then again, maybe there was no connection. Maybe his words and were just that, and they had no bearing on how he acted. Or maybe not.

He had gone on a lot about how he was a bad father, about his failings in raising Henry. By most metrics, he should have been considered a pretty successful father. His son was a smart, well-behaved guy who was following in his father's footsteps by starting his own highly promising military career. Granted Henry's prospects in the military no longer looked good, but that wasn't exactly his fault. Still, he was a highly decorated veteran who had garnered the attention of the nation because of his heroic actions. He was the son any father would have been proud to claim their own.

And it wasn't that Col. Haddock wasn't proud of his son's accomplishments, she could see it in his eyes that he loved his son dearly. He had eyes that spoke clearly of his desire to see his son exceed his own achievements, but a posture that gave away his uncertainty on what he could do to best help. For his own career all his steps seemed clear: work hard, be successful. For his son though, he had little to no idea what he had been supposed to do, though it seemed clear to him had made all the wrong choices.

Or maybe he had been too successful. Maybe that's why Col. Haddock had felt like a failure as a father, because he had spent too much time laying the groundwork for his son's success and had forgotten to take the time to get to know his son.

But even if that were the case, did any of it excuse Henry acting like a jackass? Not really, no. None of what his paternal guidance—or lack thereof—made Henry do what he did. No doubt Col. Haddock knew it, too. Then why did he say those things, why did he admit to all his faults? For someone with such a successful career, it must not have been easy for him to talk about all the things he'd messed up in his personal life.

Maybe he was just trying to be a good leader by accepting responsibility for the failings of his subordinates… even though it wasn't his fault. Maybe he was just trying to give her someone to blame, like a lightning rod for her anger so that she and Henry would still be on good terms afterwards.

But that was just Henry being a coward, right? Letting his father take the blame for his own stupidity? That must be it. After all, this whole situation was his fault. That damn idiot, running his mouth like…

That wasn't really how he felt, was it? God, she wasn't sure if she could deal with it if that was actually how he felt. He had just been angry at something and said something he didn't mean, right? But that's outbursts usually happen where something pushes you over the edge and you say what you mean before you can think clearly enough to stop yourself. God, he probably did mean what he said.

Astrid sunk slightly deeper into her seat. She'd gone over what he'd said a million times in her head, each time sinking further into a funk. She was working on not hating herself, and she had just started to make some process towards not hating herself completely. She felt that she had been at maybe 75% hating herself—which was better than the previous 100%—up until Henry's remarks. She had taken a lot of comfort in the fact that he didn't blame her for what happened. 'Had' was the key word in that sentence. Without that support, she spiraled back to pretty much where she started. The nightmares which were lessening in both intensity and frequency were now back with vengeance she hadn't missed, and showed no signs of waning. This whole situation was Henry's fault, right?

He was ultimately responsible for the words that came out of his mouth, but she had kissed him. Technically, that was the start of this whole… fiasco. So technically this was kinda her fault, right? Awesome, another tragedy she was responsible for. That's exactly what she needed on her mind right now.

She ran through the events in her head again. He looked upset because of his disability, kisses him to make him feel better. Awkwardness ensued immediately. After a few days of avoiding and a talk with a counselor, she went to talk to him and clear the air. After that, Henry sought her out to ask for forgiveness. Admittedly, it was a step in the right direction, but she wasn't sure if that was going to be enough. I guess it depended on the actual apology itself. The apology that she actually didn't get to hear because of Col. Haddock's arrival, at which point she blew up at both Henry and his father.

She was justified in her actions, right? What was happened to her had justified what she had done? They had both gone out of their way to blame her for… everything. Literally everyone had died because of her—oh God.

Her body shifted slightly as she leaned forward a few inches, scrunching her face up as she clenched her eyes shut, like if she just concentrated hard enough the intrusive thoughts would leave her alone. However, it seemed like the more she focused on the thoughts she wanted gone, the more prevalent they were in her mind. The sound of a tray being dropped on the ground behind her pulled her out of her reverie, as she lurched forward in surprise.

But Henry had been trying to apologize, and Col. Haddock had no idea what he was walking into. It seemed obvious that the two of them didn't talk, so it seemed very unlikely that Henry had told his father about what she had been struggling with, and he didn't seem to be the kind of person who was a mega-asshole intentionally. But, he did seem like a well-intentioned blundering person, at least when it came to people he cared about. Though there was one part he hadn't blundered. He really did care about his son, and he was fighting hard for him.

Now that she thought about it, the fighting was something that Col. Haddock had mentioned in their private conversation. He had talked about fighting for people he cared about briefly, and mentioned that Henry had been fighting for her. It was something she hadn't really given a whole lot of thought to, personally.

She had personally just come to terms with the fact that Henry was her closest friend… and possibly more. What had she been fighting for downrange? That should have been obvious. She fought for her platoon and she fought hard. But Henry was _more_ somehow. And she couldn't quite place her finger on what exactly it was about him that pushed her that extra bit. Hell, she'd taken a bullet to the head trying to keep him safe. To be fair though, he had taken even more punishment than she had trying to keep her safe. Despite their both best efforts, both had failed miserably. In their attempts to protect, they only ended up suffering huge amounts of trauma and were dropped off at the hospital for different reasons.

And now that she was here, what was she fighting for? She certainly was fighting herself, that's for damn sure. Especially these last few days, just waking up sane felt like a victory. And if she could make it through the day without flashbacks, horrible guilt, and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, it was a goddamn miracle. Even though she struggled with all of this, she still kept fighting to keep pushing on. Why did she just torture herself more? It would have been so much easier to just… give up. But she didn't, she was struggling through every day and _stagnate_. She used to be morally opposed to keeping things the status quo, she used to always push herself to be better. Now, she felt like her only two options were either the same or worse, so she fought for sameness—the same sameness that made her miserable and hate her life.

Why the hell was she still fighting? All this bullshit at the hospital just _sucked._ It wasn't the suck like basic training suck… that was usually just stupid as hell. "Just stand here and get yelled at for something you didn't do." This was the kind of suck where every moment was just miserable, like she was standing still while people sprinted past her, taking turns slapping her across the face with leather belts. There was just no rest from the suck.

Astrid stood up, pulling herself out of her stupor and started walking. She had no idea where she was going, she just knew that she didn't want to be sitting there anymore. There were a million questions whirling around in her mind, and the longer she sat there the more the pulled her down. She felt like had she not left, she eventually would have drowned in the couch cushions.

Each step through the halls seemed to frustrate her more and more. She had been struggling day by day through this place, and for what? A chance at a normal life? That possibility for that had disappeared the moment they had separated from their platoon. Had she been pushing herself just to see if she could? She was generally a fairly self-driven person, and that wouldn't be outside the realm of reason, but it just didn't _feel_ like the right answer.

She dodged to the side to avoid a nurse wheeling a double amputee around the hall, chatting with him about everything _except_ Afghanistan. The dude seemed cheerful and relatively happy, but she knew better. She'd seen the same look in her and Henry's eyes, the same despair as he realized everything had changed and there was no going back to the way things were before.

That's what she had been fighting for. Hope.

She felt almost normal when she and Henry were together. She could almost feel normal, like nothing had happened. When they were separated the hope that she had evaporated into the air, the hope that everything would be ok. Somehow she knew that together they could accomplish anything, that they could work together to achieve any task before them. She had this hope that while it wouldn't be the same as before, their teamwork would still be there. That friendship was one of the few things she had left from the old Astrid to hang on to.

Was that even ok? She had never been reliant on others for her own emotional wellbeing before, she had always been a firm believer in being able to take care of herself. It's not like she had an issue with trusting others, it was pretty hard to be successful in the Army and not trust your battle buddies to your left and right. That being said though, it was a hell of a lot easier to trust other people with bullets than it was for her to trust others with her—Astrid halted her train of thought. She was going somewhere sappy, and she didn't like that. She had never failed herself, and had never needed anyone's support in tough times. There, that was better.

It almost felt like admitting a significant part of her identity was killed in Afghanistan if she were to admit that she felt the need for Henry's companionship. She had gone for so long without needing his (or anyone's) help, why should she start now? Astrid swung around the next corner, continuing her idle wandering throughout the halls.

Was that a bad thing, though, if the girl from the combat zone was dead? Hell, it was the Old Astrid who had made the stupid mistakes she did. New Astrid was never going to do that again, that's for damn sure. Maybe one of those mistakes that she made was not being attached. Maybe that was why she made those mistakes. Maybe had she had that reliance on other people, she would have been more likely to stick it out for a bit longer give her platoon enough time to escape.

She pushed the door open, looking around to identify her new surroundings. The cafeteria door swung close behind her, swooshing lightly as the bristles on the bottom of the floor slid against the linoleum. Now that she thought of it, she was kinda hungry.

She stepped into the cafeteria; gliding towards the plastic trays stacked next to the archaic unbreakable plates that had probably served soldiers in Civil War. She grabbed the first one, eyeing it carefully to make sure that there was no residue from the previous user. Satisfied that the markings on the plate were stains only, she laid the plate and the nearest utensils on the tray.

"The steak, please," she said, gesturing to a slab of meat that was somewhere between dark brown and black. She was slightly disturbed by the fact that the meat bounced on the plate with a dull 'dink' noise. Her eyes flicked between the server and the food that was slopped onto her plate. The remainder of her meal—baked beans and green beans—both were as equally unappetizing as the steak though for different reasons. It truly must have taken great talent to wholly botch an entire meal for completely unrelated ways. She grabbed her tray of "food," turning towards the rows of tables just a few strides behind her. Astrid paused mid-stride.

Just a few rows away, a slightly out-of-regulations crop of auburn hair sprouted on a familiar head. Ten million thoughts whirled through her head at once. Each one posed a new question or suggested a different approach; none of them came close to giving Astrid a satisfactory plan of what to do next.

The first thing she felt was angry. She could hear those words that couldn't have possibly been chosen more perfectly to cut her to the core, and with every second that they reverberated inside her brain charged her muscles with the adrenaline necessary to do something extremely stupid. Her hands gripped the tray with an unnecessary fervor, her knuckles whitening as she tried to bend the plastic rectangle in half.

The second thing she felt was guilt. She could see how morose and depressed he looked. He looked just like a thousand other vets she had seen throughout the hospital: hopeless. The sadness clung to his limbs like weights, dragging all his features downwards with invisible chains. No matter how she looked at it, she could only see her own actions being the cause of his misery. Either it was his limb giving him grief which she was directly responsible for, or he was sad because his apology had gone to hell in a handbasket, which she was partly responsible for. Her twisting grip on the tray relaxed slightly; she was only moderately surprised that she hadn't left permanent indentations where her fingers had pressed against the plastic.

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts out enough that she could think rationally. She was trying to weigh the available options to figure that were immediately apparent. The possible outcomes fanned out before her like a tree. She could either not acknowledge his existence at all or give him some recognition. But then what? If she did recognize him, would he want to talk to her or not? What would she talk about? What could she say or not say to solve the situation? Maybe it was best to just ignore him. But if she ignored him, how would he perceive that? Would he be encouraged to try to push past her boundaries? He had always been a stubborn, thickheaded twat. Hopefully that trait had been stored in his leg.

Henry's eyes flicked up from the plate of food he was pushing around with his fork. Their eyes locked. She could feel a knot start to twist in her stomach the moment she locked eyes with him. She tried to pull her eyeballs away to focus on something else, but her gaze remained locked on the former friend before her. She could see from his sunken posture how miserable he was, but he still held a twinkle of hope deep behind the recess of his emerald eyes.

Thinking back, she couldn't recall a moment where there wasn't that same slight glimmer of hope no matter their situation. She'd seen it in training when everyone was huffing and sucking at the limited air at the top of a mountain, he had been the only one to retain even the slightest bit of optimism. Even more, she'd seen it on the mountain. Even when they looked at each other with fear stamped on their features, she still drew a bit of courage from that spark, and even more impressive, somehow that spark had kept them alive long enough for help to come. She sure as hell wasn't very influential in getting them off that mountain.

She somehow commanded her legs to begin moving again. Her left leg reverberated as her foot thumped against the ground. By the third step she managed to tear her eyes away from the gaze of Henry, locking her head and eyes straight forward. Her arms dropped straight down from her shoulders, bending ninety degrees at the elbows so that her tray of food stayed parallel to the ground. Her feet stepped in brisk, thirty inch steps until she passed Henry. She could feel his eyes following her every movement. She stopped two tables away from Henry, sliding into the seat facing away from Henry. She gently set her tray down, grabbing one of the probably clean utensils and sticking it into the mess of beans on the side of the plate.

Shit. After how many hours of thinking about what to do, she was drawing a blank. She'd thought through a thousand conversations, and she couldn't recall a single one of them at the moment. That was assuming, of course, that he came over to her first. Should she go back to his table to start the conversation? She'd been down that line of thought before, though, and it only led her deeper into confusion as to whose fault it was. She glanced up as a shadow passed over her plate. Well, I guess that solves the problem of who approaches who first.

"Astrid?"

"What?" She snapped, anger frothing at the edge of her voice. Her eyes flashed upwards, scouring his face. He swallowed nervously, his features bearing a strange expression. It struck her as somewhere between fear and guilt.

"I just wanted to talk to you for a second." Her anger surged back to the forefront of her mind, for a few moments obliterating all thoughts except those of rage. She bit back a lethal retort, snapping her mouth shut like a bear trap. She still had the presence of mind to know that flying off the handle wouldn't help the situation.

"I'm pretty sure you and your dad already did enough talking." She could see him flinch slightly at her response. To be fair, she'd toned down her response quite a bit. She was planning on being much harsher. She wasn't even trying to, but something about being in the same approximate situation that she had been in when his dad had decided to show up was making this whole conversation extremely frustrating.

"Heh heh, yeah. Sorry about that," Henry laughed nervously. He drummed his fingers against his arm, each tap doing little to dissipate his anxiousness. He glanced down and away, puffing his cheeks up with air and transferring the volume rapidly from side of his mouth to the other, making light squishing noises with each movement. "But I seriously do want to apologize though." Astrid's eyes narrowed.

"Why, did you not do enough last time?"

"No!" Henry sputtered, immediately backpedaling. "I mean, yes, I mean no. Oh God…" his voice trailed off in frustration as he buried his head in his hands, both horrified at what implications Astrid might make of either answer. Astrid simply raised an eyebrow. His head eventually slid down his hands far enough that he could look under them at Astrid's expression. He coughed, starting over again.

"What I mean, Astrid, is that I didn't feel like I got far enough into the apology before my father decided to show up and screw it all up."

"I dunno, your father seemed like you and he were on the same page. His version might have been better than yours." Yeah, Astrid was still pissed. She had been wondering how exactly she was going to respond, and she was still livid. She had tried to talk herself into being more level headed for this interaction, but Henry had obviously struck a nerve a lot stronger than she had originally thought.

"I know, I know, and I probably don't deserve a second chance—"

"You got that right," Astrid scoffed with toss of her head.

"—but, I was hoping you'd give me it anyway. What can it hurt, right? I'm not expecting company, this time." His half-hearted attempt at a joke fell flat, having the exact opposite effect he had intended. Astrid's expression soured slightly as she glared at him.

"What indeed. Need I remind you how our conversations have ended lately?" Henry cringed slightly.

"No, you really don't." Henry didn't move from the table, waiting for an answer one way or another. He sat motionless, as if every single part of his body awaited her response. Even his relentless finger drumming had stopped. Astrid's angry expression softened slightly as she rolled her eyes.

"Fine."

"Really?" Henry asked incredulously. "I honestly didn't expect you to say yes."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"I had a better chance of success than if I didn't ask."

"Touché."

"Do you mind if I start at the beginning?"

"Knock yourself out," Astrid said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Henry wrung his hands together, formulating his words as best as he could before he started spilling his guts.

"Astrid, I made a mistake. A colossal mistake," he added hastily in response to her hardening gaze. "And I don't know if my words can even home to fix what I've done."

At least he's taking responsibility for what he said, Astrid thought.

"I blamed you for everything that happened," Henry paused, fighting through his tightening throat and desire to say anything but what he needed to. "I blamed you for everything. The loss of my leg, my own bitterness, and the loss of everyone in your platoon."

"Thank you for summing that up," Astrid said through tight lips, her neck bursting into a flaming red. If Henry noticed her clenched fist resting on the table, he didn't draw any attention to it.

"But you need to know that's not how I feel about it. I don't blame you at all. Not in the slightest. I just said what I said in a moment of anger." Astrid crossed her arms, her face dropping into a disbelieving scowl. It was moments like this that genuinely made Henry fear for his life.

"Right." Astrid's single raised eyebrow conveyed exactly what it needed to. "You know, most people say what they actually mean when they're angry." Henry sighed. He'd known eventually he'd have to come to this point in the conversation, but he still wasn't excited about this part. Far from it.

"That may be true, but people also say really stupid stuff when they're hurt." Henry paused, examining Astrid's face for a reaction. Seeing Astrid's unflinching scowl staring back at him, he straightened his back up in order to brace himself for when Astrid inevitably beat the living hell out of him.

"I'm sure it's no secret, but the kiss you gave me really threw me for a loop," Henry began. "When it first happened, I had no idea what I should do. Should I kiss you back? Should I not? Would one of those piss you off? Well I don't know what I did, but it made it really awkward between the two of us for a while."

"Which was all—"

"Please, let me finish." Henry flipped his hand upwards so the palm faced towards Astrid. "Like I said, it confused. I spent a bunch of that time when we weren't talking, deep in thought. Shocking, I know," he said with a roll of his eyes. He could have sworn he saw the corners of her mouth tip upwards in the slightest hint of a smile.

"Well anyways, I had spent the time between the kiss and the… uh… well I had been trying to figure out exactly why you did it. And at the time, the only thing I could think of was that you might have considered me as… you know… maybe boyfriend material." Henry was gesturing wildly, further enhancing his overall befuddled look.

"Which admittedly was probably mostly arrogance on my part," he continued with a chagrined voice. "I mean, you're this hot, self-sufficient, super confident badass, and basically any man's dream girl. So it seemed pretty cool that you were interested in me. Which, you weren't. At all. And that was kinda frustrating but what sucked the most was that you were trying to fix me." He finished his last sentence with a few sullen head bobs as he dropped his eyes to the table.

"After you came to my room with your admission about your dreams, I had tried to take on the role of a pillar. I wanted you to be able to come to me with anything, I wanted to be unshakeable. I never told you about any of the nightmares I had, nor did I tell you about how I still sometimes see the face of the guy that fought hand-to-hand while you were unconscious. I thought that if you saw that I was struggling too, you wouldn't want to come to me for support."

"So when you came in and started talking about how you wanted to fix me, it was like everything just… fell apart. Not only was I physically broken, but you could see that I was emotionally broken too, and that was just the worst possible thing. I just knew that you saw me as this dumb weakling who needed help. So, in my own stupidity, I lashed out. Somehow, my genius-level intellect," he said with another roll of his eyes, "thought if I insult her, she won't think I'm a weakling. If I draw attention to her weaknesses, she'll know that I'm just as weak as she is. That we're both weak. Together. Phenomenally stupid, I know."

"Anyways, that's pretty much it. I was hurt because I'm an over-sensitive ninny with too much of an ego, who takes every possible comment as an attack on my manliness; and I'm sorry. I truly don't deserve forgiveness. I was an asshole of the highest degree. You showed me your weaknesses in trust, and I spat all over them in my own selfish attempts to hide the fact that I'm not as good of a soldier as I like others to believe. The only thing I can do to repay you is offer you my own weaknesses, and hope that you're a better person than I. So here I am, flaws and all." His eyes had stayed fixed on the table for most of his speech, only now daring to bring them back up to Astrid's face. Fortunately her all-consuming anger seemed to have dissipated, at least slightly.

"Ok," she finally said.

"Ok? As in, you forgive me ok? Or 'ok' as in 'I probably won't kill you' ok?" Henry said with a burst of energy. Astrid, glanced up at the ceiling, tapping her chin with an index finger.

"I can understand where you were coming from. Were our roles reversed, I probably would have acted similarly. So yeah, I forgive you. I still think you were a jerk, though."

"Oh totally. I agree," Henry stammered with an exhausted smile. He felt like a million anvils had just been lifted off of his chest. Whew, she didn't hate him at least.

"Lean forward," She asked after a few seconds of silence passed. Henry complied, not wanting to risk tempting her wrath so soon after they'd gotten to be no longer enemies. He saw her windup coming, bracing himself for the strike. Her fist crashed into his upper arm at speeds that most people think are impossible to generate from a frame as small as Astrid's.

"Hrrrng! I deserved that," he groaned through gritted teeth, trying hard not to shout or yelp in pain. Astrid hadn't pulled her punch in the slightest. That really, really hurt.

"That's for being a jackass!" Astrid said with a tone of satisfaction in her voice. Henry clamped his right hand over the impending bruise on his left deltoid, massaging it gently. As both hands were currently occupied, he had no defense against Astrid's next move.

Astrid reached up, grabbing his head with both hands, pulling him close enough to where she could plant a kiss firmly on his lips. As she pushed him back to a normal sitting position, she could see the gears in his brain spinning to catch up to what had just happened.

"And that's for being honest, and for trusting me." Henry blinked, the gears still slipping.

"Ok, I'm back to being confused again," Henry said with a blank expression. Astrid struggled to contain the grin that was spreading across her face.

"Would you like to come to dinner? It's the worst food the Army can buy." A sudden burst of recognition lit across Henry's face, as his confused expression faded into a smile.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

A/N: I updated the story. Finally. You might have noticed that shit happened very quickly in this chapter. That's because I've realized that I won't have enough time moving forward to give the story arc the proper time it needs to be fully fleshed out… which is something I'm pretty unhappy about. This individual chapter was originally planned to be another three ish chapters, but it had to be compressed in order to actually be released. I wanted to finish this story so at least it you guys weren't hanging around waiting for an update that would never come. So this will be the last chapter… sort of. I'm probably going to be writing an epilogue that will be set at least two years ahead. That will leave me with enough room for me to come back and write a sequel (if I ever have the time to do this again… which isn't super likely.) Also, it leaves room for anyone else to write a good story in there. Even after their time in the hospital wrapped up, I had a whole other segment planned delving more into the 'broken mind' aspect of the title, where Astrid continues to struggle with the PTSD where she spirals into alcoholism and depression. I was originally going to have it be sparked by her laughter at a tragic event, at which point she'd realize it was kinda shitty of her to laugh at something she shouldn't laugh at (like a biker being run over by a minivan or something). This is because soldiers have a tendency to develop a dark sense of humor in order to deal with the insane amounts of stress they have to deal with. On a very related note, if you ever wondered why 1SG Lipton from Band of Brothers was laughing as his company was getting blown apart by an artillery barrage, this is why. The physical action of laughing helps reduce stress. So I was going to have this ingrained response of dealing with stress backfire because it makes her think she's a shitty person, causing her to become generally upset, depressed, and short tempered with people around her. At the same time, she gets frustrated with the fact that she's struggling with 'mere thoughts' as she can see Henry struggling with chronic pain and his physical disability. This damage to Henry 'that she had caused' only would serve to exacerbate the mental anguish she would be putting herself through. I think you guys can see how that would cause her to spiral out of control. There were also vague plans for a jet-black therapy dog with a name all of you should be able to guess. I was also planning to have their friendship become a relationship during these hardships. Anyways, that's the story that I had planned, which I will not be able to get to for the foreseeable future. Also, if someone wants to take that story shell and run with it, please do. I think it's a great story that hasn't been told yet (or at least I haven't seen it). And if you do, let me know. I'd love to read it as it comes out. Plus, I would have also finished the story by planting the seeds for what I currently have planned as the epilogue.

Anyways, I'll be posting the epilogue… whenever it's done. Until then, I hope you enjoyed my writing. I personally felt that the story got worse over time, mostly due to increasing time constraints making me unable to spend the time I'd like on developing the plot (and after the second chapter I didn't even really edit the story, I just kinda wrote it and posted it. Not really proud of that, I wish I could have spent more time on it.)

Oh, and if it doesn't get posted in the next month, then it probably never will (because during/after my deployment I'll undoubtedly forget about it). At this point, I'd give it a 50% chance of it actually getting written. As we gear up for deployment, I'm running seven day work weeks with super long hours, so I have very little free time.

~TDS


	10. Epilogue

Four years was a lot of time. Henry couldn't possibly imagine what his life would be like in four years' time. Hell, he didn't really have a good handle on what he'd be doing four weeks from now. Just four years ago he'd been laid up in a hospital north of DC, just waiting to be released. Four years ago, he and Astrid seemed to fight over every single possible minor misunderstanding. The major misunderstandings they had tried to ignore until they realized that their lives would implode if they didn't address them. And they had… eventually. Though it wasn't without its fair share of vehement confrontations.

"Hey, can I get one Golden Passion and some whiskey on the rocks?" The bartender nodded, turning to prepare the drinks. While he waited, Henry half turned away, looking out the archways that separated the covered, resort bar from the sandy beaches of Miami, Florida. Seated comfortably amidst the crowds on the beach, a burst of blond hair lounged. He could usually spot her anywhere, but it was exceptionally easy when the everyone was tan… except his wife. Admittedly, she tried exceptionally hard to get her skin to be a color other than pasty white. They both knew she had some sort of Nordic heritage in her that blessed her with a fiery attitude and cursed her with pale complexion. Regardless, it wasn't going to stop Henry from teasing her about her tendency to go from white to red to white, with no gradation in between.

"Here you go, sir," the bartender said, swapping the drinks for Henry's credit card, which was returned just a moment later. Henry scooped up glasses, striding back out towards where Astrid was sunbathing. He wasn't a huge fan of the beach as the sand tended to muck up the joints in his prosthetic, but he wasn't really complaining too much. It wasn't so bad that he had to replace it, it just took a little extra cleaning at night. Besides, if he was going on a business trip to a nice resort with his wife at his side, he'd find a way to suffer through the inconvenience. He was literally being paid to see his wife in a bikini. How awesome was that?

He padded in between the various vacationers, careful to avoid spraying them with the warm sand as his prosthetic had a habit of taking a bit of the terrain along with it for a ride. All sorts of people dotted the beach. He wove in between, vacationers, honeymooners, young, old, fat, and fit. Had it not been for the flaxen North Star, he could have easily gotten turned around in the sea of people. No matter whom the person was or what they were doing there, they all seemed to absorbed in the same activity: enjoying the beautiful morning. Most of the people were sunbathing, some were playing various beach sports, and still fewer were digging deeply into the sand, creating elaborate sand forts. No matter the person though, they all enjoyed bathing in the warm glow of the sun and breathing the salty air wafting across the beach in a light wind. By all accounts, today would have ranked amongst the most ideal of days to be vacationing on the beach.

He paused in front of Astrid, committing the most heinous crime he could possibly commit—he was blocking the sunlight. She moved slightly, blinking her eyes open as she propped herself up on her elbows.

"You couldn't have handed me the drinks from the other side?"

"Nope! Besides, better view from here," He said, easing himself down slowly onto the beach towel that Astrid was sprawled out on. He was very careful to keep the drinks upright. As he sat down he carefully watched the liquids as they swirled around the lip of the glass, willing them through eye contact to remain unspilt.

"What'd you get me?" Astrid asked excitedly, propping herself up on one arm, reaching out with the other.

"Whiskey."

"What type of whiskey?" Henry glanced between Astrid's face and the glass in her hand. He squinted one eye as he tried to remember.

"Brownish?" Astrid only resisted the urge to slug him because one hand was holding her drink, and the other was holding up her weight.

"Well what did the bottle look like?" Henry sat cross-legtged on the towel next to his wife.

"Does it really matter? Are you not going to drink that if you don't know what it is?" Now that she had fully sat up, she had a hand free to thwack him across the head with her palm.

"Of course I'm going to drink it! But eventually I'm going to teach you some of the finer points of alcohol, whether you like it or not." Henry harrumphed quietly before acquiescing.

"The bottle wasn't circular, it had four corners, and there was a blue label on it. I didn't read the brand, though. I just know it was expensive."

"Ooh, Johnnie Walker?" Astrid's eyes lit up, and she took a sip of the alcohol.

"Sure, why not," Henry said with a shrug, and turned his attention to his Golden Passion. After taking a swig, he carved out a cup holder in the sand which held his drink surprisingly well. A slightly restrained snort of laughter burst out directly at his side. He turned towards Astrid with an obvious 'what?' expression on his face.

"Oh nothing, it's just you keep drinking those things you're going to get white-girl-wasted in no time. It's not like you have the greatest tolerance," she snickered, mirth apparent in her eyes.

"Oh like you have room to talk, Snow White," Henry snapped back with mock anger.

"Hey, at least I can drink this without the room starting to spin," she retorted.

"Well at least I tan."

"Hey, now, I can tan!" Henry rolled his eyes.

"Going from 'ghostly white' to 'unearthly pale' is not a—mmph!" Whenever Henry started winning their fake arguments, Astrid would shut him up by kissing him. Astrid had yet to encounter a time where Henry disagreed with this strategy. Quite the opposite, in fact. The way his hands were roaming seemed pretty clear that he was having a was appreciative this time as well.

Henry grabbed her about the waist, pulling her in, simultaneously pushing on her torso until her back was pressed into the towel. It was moments like this when he was really, truly appreciative of what they'd overcome together. These moments of bliss in almost let him forget, for a moment, the hellish last few years of their life.

After their stint at the hospital, the two were loosely a couple. They supported each other, comforted each other, but they were still essentially two individuals living together instead of a united team. Somehow, they managed to avoid being part of the infamous twenty-two, though not for lack of trying. Astrid had been struck with pretty bad survivor's guilt, and spiraled downwards into serious depression which she coped with by consuming massive quantities of alcohol. She was stuck in this weird conundrum where she didn't want to feel anything, but somehow the thought of suicide seemed like a disservice to the memories of her platoon. So she stayed in limbo of not living life nor accepting death; essentially she was just really miserable for a long time. Henry himself hadn't been in much of a better state. His leg's chronic pain made simply being awake a painful experience. Sleep was blessing if and when he could get it, but the sleep he got was never restful. He woke up more exhausted than the previous day. His ever-expanding sleep debt simply fed his short temper and spiteful outbursts directed at whoever was nearby—usually Astrid. Yet here he was, locking lips with the most badass women he'd ever known. Somehow the two of them gotten their shit together. They had realized fighting alone wasn't near as fun as fighting side-by-side, so they'd taken the plunge together. They faced their demons as a team and emerged victorious, proving that not only were they survivors but conquerors, too. And god damn, could they conquer whatever they wanted when they worked together, as a couple.

"See anything interesting?" Henry heard in his ear.

"Oh yes, something _very_ interesting." Henry growled as he dove back into his wife's waiting lips.

"I'm serious, loverbirds. We actually have a job to do." Astrid pushed Henry off of her with a sad sigh.

"Negative, Odin, we haven't seen anyone matching the target yet." Henry sat up, looking at his wife with longing. Leave it to Odin to ruin a good moment.

Odin wasn't his actual name of course, that's just the call sign he used on the radio, since he was the team leader of their task force. After a couple years of doing little to nothing of value, Henry and Astrid had decided that they still wanted to be sheepdogs, still wanted to be out protecting people. They had quickly joined the police, quickly getting jobs in the anti-drug task force. For them, this seemed like a veritable goldmine. They got to work together, they got (comparative to military life) a ton of personal freedom, and they weren't stuck in patrol cars looking for speeders. For the local PD, it was also a huge win. They got to add two decorated war vets who had more combat experience than the rest of the precinct combined. It made sense for the department to put them in situation where they could leverage their experience, and it was what the "rookies" themselves wanted.

"Just keep your eyes peeled, you two. Work, then play," Odin's voice crackled in their ear. Odin, whose real name was Mike, was a 35 year old veteran of the police force and had spent the last ten years working in drug enforcement. Every time they got wind of a big cocaine or heroin hotshot in town, he would get giddy at the thought of arresting him. You're always told to try to find work that you love, or to make your hobby your job or something along those lines, but rarely do you find someone who genuinely loves their job with the same passion that Mike did.

"Oh there will be some play," Henry sighed as he traced the curves on his wife with a finger.

"Just do it later, ok? And when you play, make sure you turn your mics off. Or if you don't, make sure you also set up a camera or two, ok? For security. That way if you guys get compromised we can come help," a new voice piped up on the radio. Shawn, AKA Loki, could always be counted on to talk when he wasn't supposed to—and it was usually grossly inappropriate.

"You stay the hell out of our room Loki," Astrid growled dangerously into her mic.

"But what if I don't Valkyrie, are you going to punish me?" Astrid was torn between her desire to reach through the mic and rip his esophagus out and the knowledge that he was just trying to ruffle her feathers.

"Are you done yet?" Henry spoke up before Astrid could say anything, noting the bursts of fiery anger in her eyes. Between the two of them, he was the more level-headed, so he often found it best to not intervene before she said something she would regret later.

"Tyr, you know I can go all day long."

"I guess so, from what I hear it's pretty easy to move an inch for extended periods of time."

That got Shawn to shut up for a bit, as he recognized when he had been beaten at his own game. He thought about sending back a 'you would know, wouldn't you' but that retorted just sounded paltry and lame. Henry had won this battle, but the war was far from over…

Each of them opted to stop their idle chit-chat and go back to the task at hand: watching for their target. Henry and Astrid were still posted on the beach, watching everyone who came and went. Mike sat in the lobby of the resort "reading the newspaper." Every few minutes he'd shift positions and turn the page, but he hadn't read a word in well over an hour. Shawn was posted up in their stakeout room seated at an angle towards window, keeping careful watch with magnified optics they had brought along. He had quickly volunteered for this job, so that he could keep his status as 'de-facto pervert of the group.' Henry had to hand it to him, he was really good at maintaining his title, too. Once, he'd slapped Astrid on the ass. He almost died, but he maintained his reputation. From that point forward, he stuck to verbal harassment. Astrid knew it was all in jest and that he (probably) wasn't actually coming on to her, but she made it clear that some boundaries (even though they're jokes) just shouldn't be crossed.

Henry sat up straighter, keying the mic.

"Heads up, I think we got him."

A slightly balding man walked along the beach, thoroughly enjoying the view and the fresh, salty air. His enjoyment was probably slightly hampered by the two Latino bodyguards, one on either side of him, but he didn't let their intrusive presence bother him in the slightest. He strode with a zest that made it look like he lived every day to its fullest, and at the moment, he was fully enjoying his walk on the beach.

William Burton should have been a nobody. The 45 year old man had worked dead-end IT jobs his whole life until he stumbled onto the life of crime. Specifically, narcotics. Apparently he had stumbled upon a way to safely, more profitably, move and distribute cocaine. This had made him immediately famous within the local drug community and also extremely profitable. He had immediately quit his job as tech support guru #12, devoting his life to the pursuit of greater amounts of money. He'd spent the last four years amassing power, wealth, and having his lackeys deal cruelly with anyone who crossed his path. He had enough funds he could go anywhere and do anything, and routinely vanished off the face of the earth for months at a time while continuously conducting business. It was rare opportunities like this that he was actually seen in person, an opportunity that police team planned on exploiting.

Henry tracked him with his eyes only, keeping his head firmly locked out at sea. He remembered countless moments of frustration during basic training where he couldn't figure out where his drill sergeant was looking because of the dark glasses they always wore. Now, he was using the same strategy for a totally different goal. As his target walked steadily across the beach, his eyes flicked between all three of the targets, specifically keeping a close eye on the bodyguards, watching as their clothes fluttered in the breeze, watching for sharp corners as their clothes 'imprinted' their concealed weapons.

Henry pushed himself upright, coming to a half crouch before standing upright. He offered a hand to Astrid, who gripped it firmly, launching herself upwards. She grabbed her extra towel, wrapping it around her like a skirt, grabbing her purse which she had perched on the edge of their beach towel. She gave him a quick nod, which he interpreted as 'ready.'

The duo strode back through the crowded beach and back to the resort, being fed intel through the constant comm chatter.

"He took a left turn into the lit hallway on your left."

"I can't see them anymore, changing position."

"I got him, he just entered the lobby."

"Roger, we got him again."

"What floor is he going to?"

"The fourth floor."

"Ok, moving."

"In position."

"Going to observation post four."

"Lost him again. Tyr, Valkyrie, you need to get onto the fourth floor."

"Roger."

"Ok, we're here, where too?"

"No idea, I couldn't get to OP4 in time."

Astrid pressed the door to the fourth floor open, staggering upwards through the stairwell, followed closely by Henry who was equally off-kilter. The two supported each other as they clumsily made their way down the first hallway, doing their very best to pull off a pretty convincing annoying drunk couple. Giggling at inane jokes, lack of volume control, and the whole nine yards. The fact that they had just been drinking and still smelled strongly of alcohol only helped to sell their bit. After a few minutes of 'walking' down a few halls, Henry burst out.

"Babe! Babe! Our room is this way." Astrid giggled something along the lines of 'silly me,' as her grin absorbed her features. The direction Henry was pulling her had the two guards posted outside of one of the suites. The two continued their charade down the hall, closing in on their target. Astrid still tumbled back and forth, her purse swinging wildly under her control. Eventually, the purse dropped out of her hand a few feet from the guards. She bent down to grab it, losing her balance in the process. She fell in a heap next to her purse. Henry burst out laughing.

"Babe, you're drunk. Come on, let's get back to our room." Astrid made large hand gestures in order to fully display her exasperation.

"I'm not drunk! I'm just a little tipsy, that's all."

"C'mon babe," Henry offered her a hand to help her up. Astrid gave it a quick tug, pulling him downward and face first into a sloppy wet kiss competition, which she had every intention of winning. Eventually after 30 seconds of lip smacking, the guards had had enough.

"Excuse me, but you'll have to leave." The first guard said forcefully, pulling Henry back. Astrid grinned voraciously at Henry. She had definitely won, at least in her book.

"What the hell, man? What's your problem?" Henry spluttered.

"My problem is that you don't belong here. This is not where your room is, now please go disturb people elsewhere."

"No!" Henry said in response, standing up suddenly. In one step he was back next to his wife, helping her up. "I paid good money for a good room for our honeymoon, and damnit I'm going to my room!"

"Your room isn't back there, trust me," the guard said with growing irritation.

"Yes it is! 513 is right there!" Henry said, pointing. Astrid deftly handed him her purse into his free hand.

"That's 413. Now please leave."

"413? Shit, I'm on the wrong floor. My bad, amigo. I didn't mean to cause trouble." Henry patted the guard's shoulder thankfully, leaving his hand resting on the guard's suit jacket. The guard couldn't figure out what pissed him off more, the fact that this asshole was touching him, or the fact that the asshole called him 'amigo.' He opened his mouth to say something along the lines of 'don't touch me if you want to keep your fingers' but all he got out was a surprised grunt.

Henry launched forward, using the guard's shoulder as a springboard. In an instant, he jumped across the gap between the first and second guard, swinging the purse mightily until it impacted the second guard with a sickening 'thunk' noise. He turned back towards the first guard to see the problem already dealt with. As he had jumped forward, he had tossed the first guard into Astrid's waiting arms. A few seconds later, the guard's head lolled to the side as Astrid's choke had effectively rendered him unconscious.

God, was there a thing that women couldn't do? Actually there was, and the answer was 'cook,' but it really a problem. It had meant that Henry had to expand his culinary skills beyond 'ground beef and mac'n'cheese,' but it was a task he proved to not actually be bad at.

"Here," Astrid said, pulling the pistol out of the belt of her guard and handing it to Henry. "Put this somewhere else." He grabbed it out of her hand, retrieved the pistol from his own guard, and dumped them both in a planter a few feet away.

"And here you go," he said, returning the purse to its rightful owner.

"Ah, thanks."

"I had no idea it doubled so good as a flail."

"Purses are surprisingly handy when you pack them correctly," Astrid said plainly, withdrawing the Glock that she had hidden inside. "Especially when you pack them with hard, metal items."

"What about sharp metal items?"

"Those too," she agreed with a smile. Henry returned a smirk of his own, pulling his own pistol out of his waist holster. He grabbed the back of the slide and pulled slightly, quadruple checking to ensure that there was still a round in the chamber. There was, and he readied himself for the moment of truth.

Astrid was already stacked up on the door, every muscle in her body tensed and ready to fight. Just at a glance, he could see that she was totally, 100% focused on the task at hand. Every single fiber in her body stood taught, ready to release all 150 pounds of fury against whatever threat might lay in wait in the next room. A few strands of hair had fallen free and hung in front of her face in a way that suited her perfectly. Untamed, unbowed, and wild. Despite their unruly qualities, both Astrid and her hair were usually controlled until they were loosed upon an unsuspecting foe. For Astrid, it meant she was fighting bad guys. For her hair, it usually meant that it would fall in front of her eyes and piss her off in ways that were equal parts endearing and entertaining to Henry. In both cases, the foe probably should have seen the inevitable coming, but could never fully prepare for the onslaught. Henry smiled a bit internally. God damn what a woman.

He steeled himself for the kick. He drew a few steps back in order to get a better start on the door. His unfeeling appendage turned the door around the lock to splinters, with an ear shattering crack. Astrid charged in first, weapon drawn. Just through the doorway, Astrid made a hard left as soon as the entryway expanded to a full suite. Henry followed up, going straight ahead.

"Police, drop the weapon!"

A/N

A huge thank you to all of you who've stayed and read this far. It really has been fun to get creative again for a bit.

As you might have realized, this epilogue was a bit more silly and less serious than the rest of the story. That was an intentional deviation from pseudo-realism of the main story. I've known a lot of military guys who get out and do law enforcement, but this is obviously a super-fictitious representation of the boys in blue. Partly because I have no personal experience with it, so I can't get super nitty gritty details correct so I didn't even try. That being said, I do have extensive experience with government bureaucracies, how inefficient they are, what radio etiquette actually is, etc., so I could have made it more realistic if I wanted to, but that leads me to part number two. The second part of why I didn't write this as more realistic was that it was just such a damn fun idea that I wanted to write.

S/O to all of you who've reviewed the story. Especially the guests who I have no idea how they tracked the story. My guess is that they bookmarked it and checked every Sunday or something, I honestly have no idea. Amber Pen, Harrypanther, Midnight510, Eagledragon15, Rewired, UnbreakableWarrior, Percabeth, Dragons2010, huge thanks.

And Guest #1 who left that really nice review on the last chapter, huge many ultra thanks.

Unfortunately, now I'll be getting back to the real world. My upcoming deployment shouldn't be that dangerous, which is actually a huge disappointment. The only comparison I can really make is that if you spend the last five years of your life training to play a sport, and then when you finally get a chance, the coach says 'hold on, let's just go sit in the stadium.' Probably a dumb mindset to have, but whatever. That being said, if ISIS does want to start shit, I'll be ready and waiting.

I'll see you all again in a year!


	11. Guess Who's Back

What's up? It's been a while. And boy, have I got an update for you. Well, it's less of an update and more of a new story. That's right, I have a new story written almost in its entirety. I'll be uploading it as regularly as I can, which I can guarantee won't be that regular. My schedule is insane right about now. I get to work at 5:30 AM and leave around 8:30 PM. It's a bit soul crushing, but it is unfortunately necessary just to do everything that has to be done. I've spent the last (18?) months since I've last uploaded working on this story though, and I personally think it's much better than this one. This one was made up as I went along and it shows. Also I didn't do any editing on it. Just kind of wrote it up and posted it. This new story is better in every way. I planned it out ahead of time, I made an outline, I had recurring themes and foreshadowing, and ultimately I'm telling a story with a meaning. I think it's actually worth reading, whereas this story is not the worst thing on this website, but it's close.

Also, Guest, I'm really surprised that you paid close enough attention to this ol' story to notice that it was updated (sorta). I removed some of the authors notes that contained personal information that I shouldn't have put out there in the first place. But please, come check out the new story! I'm sure you'll like it. It's going to be a bit of a slow build at first, but by the second act shit will start going down. There's a few chapters in act three that I'm actually proud of.

Enjoy!

~TDS


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